Re: [jamboost] Re: Search paths for configuration files

From: Vladimir Prus (ghost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-02-10 07:40:41

On Thursday 10 February 2005 15:21, David Abrahams wrote:
> Vladimir Prus <ghost_at_[hidden]> writes:
> > On Wednesday 09 February 2005 19:43, David Abrahams wrote:
> >> On linux we search /etc for the site-config.jam. Doesn't something
> >> under /usr/local (maybe /usr/local/etc) seem like it should be
> >> searched too?
> >
> > I don't think so:
> > http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#THEUSRHIERARCHY
> > says:
> >
> > /usr is the second major section of the filesystem. /usr is shareable,
> > read-only data. That means that /usr should be shareable between various
> > FHS-compliant hosts and must not be written to. Any information that is
> > host-specific or varies with time is stored elsewhere.
> >
> > So, /usr is not for any configuration files at all.
>
> I'm not sure what that "should not be written to" means. How are you
> supposed to install software then? 

I suspect they mean "should not be written after installation"

> If you read the description of 
> /usr/local it certainly sounds like it's shareable, host-specific, and
> varies with time.

And it also mentions that

/usr/local/etc is for 

"Host-specific system configuration for local binaries"

> I think you're probably right, as I've never understood this stuff
> well (I'm going to read that link now), but the descriptions sure are
> confusing.

Now I think I don't understand this either.

> >> On all systems we search $BOOST_BUILD_PATH. But the build system may
> >> not be installed in $BOOST_BUILD_PATH (because its location is
> >> specified by boost-build.jam). Shouldn't we look in the build system
> >> directory first?
> >
> > I believe that path specified by boost-build.jam is prepended to
> > BOOST_BUILD_PATH.
>
> Not from the user's perspective it isn't. The environment variable is
> not changed. That prepending is just an internal hack we do to our
> copy of the variable as part of the initialization process. In fact
> we don't even mention it IIRC (and we shouldn't).

So, we should only documented that path specified in boost-build.jam is 
searched too?

- Volodya