Hello Jason,
On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 07:25:16PM +0200, Jason Curl wrote:
> Sounds like my best solution would be to use the "sysconf_DATA" option.
this was also the fist solution which came to my mind.
> Any ideas how to take 'sysconfdir' and somehow import it into my program
> so it knows where the default configuration files are?
See `info Autoconf FAQ defining' for general instructions.
A correction, though:
I'd use
AM_CPPFLAGS = -DDATADIR='"$(datadir)"'
instead of modifying CPPFLAGS.
I think it is OK to use the default value of sysconfdir and let the
user configure with --sysconfdir=/etc if that is what they want.
(GNU/Linux distributions often set that in their build scripts.)
It is possible to do some hacks in configure.ac so that the default
is /etc. (And you can then use DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS to revert
that change for distcheck, so that it passes.)
> I'm also concerned about overwriting a users old configuration file. So
> any ideas how I can operate on any existing files before they're
> overwritten? For example, I might try a merge, or just copy the files as
> a backup before overwriting them.
I guess that in that case it might be best to foget about
sysconf_DATA, and use install-exec-local for the installation of
the config file. (You would use EXTRA_DIST to distribute your
default config file, of course.)
This thread got quite a big quickly; if a particular question
remained unansewered, feel free to post it again, under a new
subject.
Have a nice day,
Stepan Kasal
