Since we're already on a roll regarding removing unsupported options from
the --help output, I have a few more for you:
|Fine tuning of the installation directories:
| --bindir=DIR user executables [EPREFIX/bin]
| --sbindir=DIR system admin executables [EPREFIX/sbin]
| --libexecdir=DIR program executables [EPREFIX/libexec]
| --datadir=DIR read-only architecture-independent data [PREFIX/share]
| --sysconfdir=DIR read-only single-machine data [PREFIX/etc]
| --sharedstatedir=DIR modifiable architecture-independent data [PREFIX/com]
| --localstatedir=DIR modifiable single-machine data [PREFIX/var]
| --libdir=DIR object code libraries [EPREFIX/lib]
| --includedir=DIR C header files [PREFIX/include]
| --oldincludedir=DIR C header files for non-gcc [/usr/include]
| --infodir=DIR info documentation [PREFIX/info]
| --mandir=DIR man documentation [PREFIX/man]
Hardly any package uses all of these and they unnecessarily enlengthen the
help display. Also, it's of course wrong to advertise options that don't
really exist. I'm not making this up, I've seen users complain "I tried
--xxxdir and it didn't do anything".
Perhaps this could be made an optional second parameter to
AC_PREFIX_{DEFAULT|PROGRAM}, as in
AC_PREFIX_DEFAULT(/usr/local, (bindir,libdir,includedir,mandir))
That way you also communicate to your users where you really plan on
installing things, as an extra service. (Whether you keep that promise is
another thing of course.)
Does this seem feasible?
--
Peter Eisentraut Sernanders väg 10:115
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 75262 Uppsala
http://yi.org/peter-e/ Sweden
