From: cilibrar@... (Rudi Cilibrasi)
Date: 2004-09-27T22:14:24+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby extconf.rb / autoconf (in?)compatibility

Hi again everybody,
 
Unfortunately, Tim's solution is proving to be hard to understand; it
really isn't a simple system he's made, and his configuration scripts
have so many dependencies that I can't even get the package to
configure on
my Debian unstable system.  I am working with Tim privately via email
to try to get the problems installing his stuff straightened out, but
while we do this I would like to reiterate the question:
 
Is there any way to adjust the installation-paths that will be used
in the Makefile generated by ruby extconf.rb ?  

Nobu has already pointed out that the problem is that these paths are 
determined at ruby install time. I also reached the same conclusion
some time ago.  The question is how do I fix it?
The reason I need to do it is so that a non-root user can install
my software package in their home directory.  Is this simply
impossible
in the current system?  DESTDIR is not a complete solution because it
does
not offer enough flexibility in customizing the paths.  To me this
seems
to suggest a basic functionality void in the ruby installation system.
What is the right way to do it?  It seems to much to ask someone to
install their own version of ruby in their homedir just so they can
install
packages using mkmf / extconf.rb.
 
One idea that occured to me is to create a customized rbconfig.rb to
override the standard one, but I am not even sure how to do this
without
actually overwriting the real systemwide rbconfg.rb file.  Is there
some
way to load my own custom rbconfig.rb instead of the default one that
is system wide so that extconf.rb will install my package in different
paths?
 
I really need help with this problem as it has been troubling me for
over
a year, and none of my Ruby projects are packaged well enough for the
users I am targetting.  It's really the only limitation I have had
serious trouble with so far.  I would hate to redo much of the
functionality
of extconf.rb but it seems like something like this will be necessary
unless we can figure out
 
a) is there critical functionality missing from the current mkmf
system?
(or am I just missing a simpler solution?)
 
and
 
b) what can we do to fix it?
 
Cheers,
 
Rudi