Re: patching Makefiles vs. setting things straight with post-install &?mv(1)

[Dieter Baron <dillo%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

In article <20090211145846.GA17590%pintail.smokva.net@localhost> Petar wrote:
: Hi,

: I asked an author if he is willing to add another configure switch to
: his software which would allow the separation between `where to look for
: configure files' and `where to install configure files'.

: See pkgsrc developer guide 15.2.2. & 15.2.3. (``the packages themselves
: must not touch the contents of ${PKG_SYSCONFDIR} directly'') for
: the reason behind this request.

: Here is his response:

:    > What is the difference between changing the Makefiles of an
:    > application to put its configuration files where the pkgsrc
:    > developer guide requires or following the application's
:    > Makefiles in the NetBSD machinery with find and mv commands?
:    >
:    >   find /somewhere/outside/of/PREFIX -name '*.conf' |
:    >        xargs -I {} mv {} $PREFIX/share/examples
:    >
:    > --confdir is possible, but I would like to avoid adding
:    > mechnanisms unless really necessary.


: So, why do we prefer patching over simply moving files in post-install?

  If we let the package install the example config files where the
application expects the real config files, any previously existing
config files would be overwritten (and changes made by the user would
be lost).

                                        yours,
                                        dillo