From: Tim Hunter <cyclists@...>
Date: 2004-09-26T03:54:51+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby extconf.rb and autoconf (in?)compatibility

Rudi Cilibrasi wrote:

> I have made a software packagae, complearn-0.6.2.tar.gz ,
> that uses autoconf and automake to manage system configuration. One of
> the standard options is:
> ./configure --prefix=$HOME/wherever/placetoinstall
> 
(snip)
> 
> Is there a better solution to this problem?
> 

The RMagick (http://rmagick.rubyforge.org) build process uses the
standard ./configure, make, make install steps. The top-level Makefile,
though, simply calls Minero Aoki's setup.rb
(http://raa.ruby-lang.org/project/setup/) to do the real work. It's
setup.rb that actually calls extconf.rb to make the "real" Makefile, runs
make, and installs the RMagick extension.

The ./configure step generates the top-level Makefile and inserts the value
of any --prefix option into the Makefile such that the value is passed
along to setup.rb via setup.rb's --prefix option. The setup.rb script does
the actual installing.

My explanation is probably too vague to be helpful. It's easier to read the
code than to explain it. RMagick's CVS repository is here:
http://rubyforge.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/cgi/viewcvs.cgi/?cvsroot=rmagick


P.S. Actually, RMagick uses an older version of setup.rb called install.rb,
but the principle is the same.