Re: get rid of LOCALBASE

[Jason Bacon <outpaddling%yahoo.com@localhost>]

On 12/3/20 2:10 PM, Greg Troxel wrote:
> Joerg Sonnenberger <joerg%bec.de@localhost> writes:
>
> > Well, there are good reasons for them to be historically separate, even
> > if we have removed many of the differences over time. pkgviews,
> > subprefixes etc. Ultimately, the main difference remains that LOCALBASE
> > is the user-settable variable and PREFIX is the infrastructure variable.
> > I don't really see the point in renaing the former to the latter.
> So trying to take that comment, which makes sense to me, into a plan
>
>    LOCALBASE is a user-settable variable
>
>    PREFIX is an infrastructure-settable variable
>
>    PREFIX should be set to LOCALBASE, absent some special reason
>
>    any code that uses LOCALBASE (other than setting PREFIX) is arguably
>    wrong and should be using RPEFIX, unless there's a good reason that is
>    explained in comments after being discussed here
>
>
> and this is all sort of floating a theory that our current issues are
> due to confusion between user-settable and infrastructure-settable
> variables, and when the infrastructure-settable one is defined.
FWIW, FreeBSD ports still uses both for reasons akin to the X11BASE 
mentioned earlier, but only for Linux binaries now since X11 was moved 
to ${LOCALBASE}.  From bsd.port.mk:

# Various directory definitions and variables to control them.
# You rarely need to redefine any of these except WRKSRC and NO_WRKSUBDIR.
#
# LOCALBASE             - Where ports install things.
#                                 Default: /usr/local
# LINUXBASE             - Where Linux ports install things.
#                                 Default: /compat/linux
# PREFIX                - Where *this* port installs its files.
#                                 Default: ${LINUXBASE} if 
USE_LINUX_PREFIX is set,
#                                 otherwise ${LOCALBASE}

Under pkgsrc, help/directories.help seems to indicate the same logic as 
FreeBSD ports, but there does not appear to be an alternative to 
LOCALBASE underlying PREFIX, and PREFIX is not supposed to be overridden 
(not the case in FreeBSD ports, PREFIX is explicitly set in rare cases):

# PREFIX
#    This is the directory where the package should install its
#    files. This is usually LOCALBASE.
#
#    Tags: read-only, system-defined, non-overridable, etc.
#
#    See also:
#        LOCALBASE.
#

# LOCALBASE
#    This is the directory where all packages are usually installed.
#    It is set by the user, and packages must not modify it.
#

Which leaves the question of specifically when the two might actually 
differ.

If there are current or planned uses where PREFIX != LOCALBASE, then 
probably we need to keep both.