Re: The default $fpath

[Bart Schaefer <schaefer@brasslantern.com>]

On Sep 7,  9:40pm, Peter Stephenson wrote:
}
} You can already set fpath the way you want in an initialisation file.

Exactly.

} The proposal is simply to provide a directory where there's some
} reasonable chance it will be found by all installations of the shell on
} the same system regardless of configuration.

Actually, I think the proposal is to provide a directory where all OTHER
softwares' configuration systems can install shell functions so that they
are found by all installations of zsh on ANY system, regardless of the
local-zsh-builder's and/or system-zsh-packager's idea of the path to the
functions provided by zsh itself.

} [...] If this builtin default becomes configurable
} to use different directories the whole advantage is lost; it's far better
} to use common run-time code to ensure a non-default directory.

This point, however, holds true either way.  I just think it's impossible
to promise that the directory will exist; certainly the zsh installer
should not unilaterally create it.

} I'd really like to know if there are any problems caused by *this*
} proposal, adding /usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions to the compiled-in
} path.

I can't think of any; presumably the configure-time (?) code for this
would resemble

    if [ X$ac_default_prefix != X/usr/local ]
    then fixed_sitefndir=/usr/local/zsh/site-functions
    elif [ X$tzsh_name != Xzsh ]
    then fixed_sitefndir=/usr/local/zsh/site-functions
    else fixed_sitefndir=''
    fi

and then zsh.mdd would use something like

    echo '#define FIXED_FPATH_DIR "'$(fixed_sitefndir)'"' >> zshpaths.h.tmp;

and finally somewhere in Src/init.c the fpath would be prefixed with the
value of FIXED_FPATH_DIR if it is non-empty.

The worst that happens is that /usr/local is a remote file system (which
would seem rather unlikely) and zsh gets slowed down every time fpath is
searched for a directory there that doesn't exist.