[erlang-questions] Erlang and autoconf/make

[Romain Lenglet]

Pupeno wrote:
> The only thing that still bothers me a bit is that on
> configure it says:
>
> checking for Erlang/OTP library installation base directory...
> ${exec_prefix}/lib/erlang/lib
> checking for Erlang/OTP 'serlvers' library installation
> subdirectory... ${libdir}/erlang/lib/serlvers-0.0.0
>
> Shouldn't it say:
>
> checking for Erlang/OTP library installation base
> directory... /usr/lib/erlang/lib
> checking for Erlang/OTP 'serlvers' library installation
> subdirectory... /usr/local/lib/erlang/lib/serlvers-0.0.0
>
> Something I can do about it ?

That is normal, and that is even required as for the GNU Coding 
Standards!
(I can't give you the URL, since the gnu.org server is not 
accessible right now)

Installation dirs should keep their prefix un-substituted, so 
that they can be changed at the last moment when calling make.
That substitution in installation directories must be done by 
make.

That is why, it is strongly advised to have Autoconf's configure 
scripts rewrite only Makefiles, and not other kinds of files, 
because if you rewrite variables in a file that is not 
interpreted by make, you may have some prefixes unsubstituted.

Of course, you don't have that problem with variables that are 
not installation directories (e.g., @PACKAGE_TARNAME@, etc.).


Anyway, you should not worry. You can check that your Makefiles 
actually already work! (^_^)


Regards,

-- 
Romain LENGLET
Pr. Chiba Shigeru Group
Dept. of Mathematical and Computing Sciences
Tokyo Institute of Technology