RE: !! Take note !! CVS frozen !! RE: [Tcllib-devel] Tcllib Release

[Andreas K. <and...@Ac...>]

>
> At 02.42 +0200 2005-10-07, Andreas Kupries wrote:
> >The Tcllib CVS has been tagged and __ pre-release __ archives have bee=
n
> >created.
> [snip]
> >Please give them a whirl.
>
> I currently have some hours to kill in Never-never-land (in an airport
> lounge just outside Customs, waiting for a flight that's currently
> estimated to be two hours late),

Oi.

> so why not do some whirling, indeed? So
> far I've mostly been dealing with the installer, but I thought I'd bett=
er
> start typing things down before I forget...
>
> A first problem I had was that the installer doesn't handle permissions.

Do you mean by that the installer gets confused by permissions when runni=
ng,
or that it does not set permissions on the files it installs ?

> I understand it probably can't, but there could be some advice in
INSTALL.txt
> on how to deal with this.

We do have commands in Tcl for this, see "file attributes". We will have =
to
distinguish Windows and Unix, but otherwise we could set permissions. We
should possibly discuss what would be good permissions.


> I suspect [exec sudo installer.tcl] doesn't
> qualify as good practice.

Hm. Well, if it finds a proper Tclsh. But in general no.

> Also it could try to catch the error (for me it
> was the [file mkdir tcllib1.8] that failed first) rather than just erro=
r
> out completely.

I am not sure here. The tcllib1.8 directory is important for all packages.
Erroring out does make sense IMHO.


> Next, I'd like to ask where the log ends up (when running the GUI
> version).

Nowhere. It is only shown in the GUI, but not written to file.

> I got some curious error messages in the documentation-making-phase (fo=
r
> snit_faq, I think), which however didn't stop the installation.

Actually warnings. Some of the section/subsection titles are not unique.

> I
> thought I
> could come back to it later, but after installation was complete wish j=
ust
> exited, and then the information in the log window was no more. (I thin=
k
> the error said something about a particular string not being a
> valid return
> code in the sv_se locale (???).)

Eh ?? Interesting.


 [Later, after having browsed the
> installer.tcl code a couple of times, I see that the installer indeed j=
ust
> quits when done. When working in GUI mode, it should first ask the user
> whether (s)he wants to save the log window contents. An additional
> alternative could be to dump the log window contents to stdout, though.=
]

The installer can be forced into non-gui mode, using -no-gui. In that mod=
e
the log goes to stdout and can be captured.


> Another curious thing is the default locations the installer
> selects, which
> had me confused for quite a while. In my system it wants to place
> things in
> /System/Library, despite /Library being more appropriate (e.g. being wh=
ere
> my wish is located). The logic that appears to be responsible for this =
is
> that libpath is set to the last element of tcl_pkgPath, but is that
> appropriate? Looking at how my tcl_pkgPath is constructed, it mostly go=
es
> from specific (e.g. user-installed packages) to general (those provided=
 by
> the OS vendor), so the things I install should rather go into some of t=
he
> early entries on this path.

Hm. This might actually be platform dependent. From your paths I see that
you are on OS X. I tested this so far only on other Unix installations
(Linux, Solaris, ...) and Windows. For these the path chosen is quite
sensible.


> Slightly related, but not having any ill effects for me, is the way in
> which the test for a starkit is being performed. It tests whether [info
> nameofexecutable] is a prefix of [info library], but it appears to me a=
s
> the test may miss some cases where this happens. The reason is that I f=
ind
> my [info nameofexecutable] is the non-normalized
> /usr/bin/../../Library/Frameworks/Tk.framework/Versions/8.4/Resources/W=
ish
> Shell.app/Contents/MacOS/Wish Shell
> whereas the [info library] is normalized to
> /Library/Frameworks/Tcl.framework/Versions/8.4/Resources/Scripts
> Perhaps starkits don't normalize their library paths, or perhaps they d=
o,
> but one should anyway take note of this possibility for errors.

I have to admit, that is the first time that I am seeing a non-normalized
path in [info nameofexecutable] ... Ok, Jeff told that this can occur on
other Unices as well, symbolic path, or running ./tclsh etc. ... Hm, I gu=
ess
we should normalize, if [file normalize] is  present (remmber, parts of
tcllib can be used with 8.2 and 8.3 as well, so the installer cannot assu=
me
8.4 features)


> Not much actual testing got done, but OTOH these delayed remarks could =
be
> useful in a slightly longer timeframe.

Yes. Definitely.

> Lars Hellstr=F6m,
> now safely home (after far too many hours waiting in airports
> this weekend;

I can feel your pain ... My end-of-the-yar vacation is coming up ...
Vancouver - Amsterdam - Duesseldorf. Well, better than older flights to
various conferences, via Chicago ... That was usually a pain. Today likel=
y
even more with US border paranoia way up.

> aarrrrgh)



--
	Andreas Kupries <and...@Ac...>
	Developer @ http://www.ActiveState.com, a division of Sophos
	Tel: +1 604 484 6491