* Jose-Marcio wrote on Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 04:46:29PM CEST: > Ralf Wildenhues wrote: >> >> upgrade: >> $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) preinstall >> $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) install >> $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) postinstall
> Only to let you know. Maybe other people have the same needs than me. > There are two reasons I'm doing this. > > * My package uses a database library (BerkeleyDB). From time to time, > data format changes. So, to install the new release, I need to dump > the database using the **old version**, install the new version and > recreate databases with the **new version**. > > * My software is a mail filter. This filter can be running on a busy > server (handling, says, 10 or 20 messages per second). Downtime shall > be minimized. The sequence of operations are : stop the MTA, stop the > filter, make upgrade, restarts the filter and restarts the MTA. It's > pratical and less error prone to have a single command to launch > instead of typing all them. Either way, all this can be done with a > small shell script. Well, one reason I'm hesitant is that I think most such pre- or post- actions are pretty system-dependent, more so than other tasks routinely done in makefiles. For example, they would often depend on the type of GNU/Linux distribution used, rather than only the config.guess triple. This makes it more attractive to keep them in a separate file, as you say a small shell script, or a debian/rules entry, or a .rpm stanza or so. Cheers, Ralf