Re: zshall.1

[DervishD <zsh@dervishd.net>]

    Hi Bart :)

 * Bart Schaefer <schaefer@brasslantern.com> dixit:
> On Oct 24, 10:03am, Peter Stephenson wrote:
> } I'm not sure what use people put the --program-suffix option to; it's
> } possibly they expect to be able to rename the files to the base programme
> 
> No.
> 
> The normal use of --program-suffix would be e.g. --program-suffix=.exe
> so that e.g. "cc -o zsh main.o init.o ..." becomes "cc -o zsh.exe ..."
> when using a unix-oriented build system on a Cygwin-type platform where
> the underlying OS requires a file extension to create an executable.

    Probably, but the developer can affect other files, too, and in
addition to this, there is the "transform-name", which probably got
introduced in order to avoid "forbidden" file names when installing
on dummy OSes, but people use it to add things like "-dev" to names.

    I know, if you want to install multiple versions of any package
you have to use different prefixes, but people uses the "--program"
options for that frequently.
 
> It's not supposed to affect anything but the binaries, and for Zvi
> to expect it to rename things inside the manual pages -- or for
> zsh's build to already be doing so in some cases -- is unusual.

    But autoconf allows you to ignore anything especified by the user
in the command line, change it or misuse it, and the documentation
doesn't make clear, IMHO, that the "--program" options should affect
only binaries. The name is not enough to assume that, in fact you
*have* to use "--program-transform-name" in any file your project
installs if the name is going to cause problems in dumb OSes.

    Of course, all that crap is not zsh's fault, but zsh is going to
suffer from it and I don't think is a bad idea to affect all
installed files and hardcoded paths with the "--program" options.

    Raúl Núñez de Arenas Coronado

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