Hi,
The environment-setting script
eval `$prefix/etc/rc --eval all env`
is very useful, but has one inconvenient side-effect: it insists on
putting certain system directories (e.g., /bin, /usr/bin, etc.) at the
end of the path variable it is modifying (e.g., PATH, MANPATH,
LD_LIBRARY_PATH, INFOPATH), whether these system directories are already
present in the path variable or not.
The rcPath() function in etc/rc.func does check to see if the system
directory is present in the file system, and does not add it if it is
not; but it does no similar check to see if it is present in the path
variable it is modifying.
The net result in our environment is that certain commands will break
after setting the openpkg environment in this fashion. One example: we
also use the Berkeley system library on our systems, but place it after
/usr/bin and /bin, because we don't want to use the Berkeley versions of
commands unless there is no comparable native version. However, after
executing "eval `$prefix/etc/rc --eval all env`" the Berkeley version of
commands becomes the preferred one.
Since I'd like to make sure that I stay in sync with future versions of
OpenPKG, I would prefer to continue to use "eval `$prefix/etc/rc --eval
all env`" rather than write my own environment-setting script from
scratch. So I decided to modify rcPath() such that when the "-e" option
is passed to it, it makes sure that the passed system directory is
*both* present in the file system and *not* present in the path variable
before it adds the system directory to the path variable.
My question is whether you would entertain my submitting this change to
rc.func for inclusion as part of the OpenPKG base package.
Thanks,
Dennis
Dennis McRitchie
Computational Science and Engineering Support (CSES)
Academic Services Department
Office of Information Technology
Princeton University
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