From: Suraj Kurapati <sunaku@...>
Date: 2010-04-21T14:01:25+09:00
Subject: Re: Proposing a Ruby Packaging Standard

Thomas Sawyer wrote:
> On Apr 20, 1:12 pm, Suraj Kurapati <sun...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> find my project's man/ directory from my project's executable in bin/!
> 
> The standard approach would be something like:
> 
>   require 'rbconfig'
>   dir = Config::CONFIG['datadir']
>   file = File.join(dir, 'man/man1/ember.1')

Thanks.  Based on this example, I found that there is a
Config::CONFIG['mandir'] which tells us exactly where the
system's man/ directory is located.

> B/c of RubyGems there is an extension method that redirects to the the
> appropriate place.
> 
>   Config.datadir("ember")

RubyGems does not seem to provide that functionality on my system:

    sun@yantram ~> irb
    ## ruby 1.9.1p378 (2010-01-10 revision 26273) [i686-linux]
    >> require 'rbconfig'
    => true
    >> Config.datadir("ember")
    NoMethodError: undefined method `datadir' for RbConfig:Module
            from (irb):2
            from /usr/bin/irb:12:in `<main>'
    >> require 'rubygems'
    => false
    >> Config.datadir("ember")
    NoMethodError: undefined method `datadir' for RbConfig:Module
            from (irb):4
            from /usr/bin/irb:12:in `<main>'
    >> Gem::VERSION
    => "1.3.6"

> But I think it might be a problem to tell which is which for locating
> the man/ directory.

I guess RubyGems provides a Config.mandir(the_gem_name) method to do 
this?

>> Also, if I provide a man/ directory in my gem/tarball package like this:
>>
>> man/
>> └── man1
>>     ├── ember.1
>>     └── ember.1.html
> 
> Can man handle .html? 

Nope.  That's just there as a backup, in case a user is on Windoze
or their system somehow lacks the `man` command.  `man` does warn me
about it though when searching for manpages in my man/ directory:

    man: warning: man/man1/ember.1.html: ignoring bogus filename

But I think it's worthy trade-off to have a HTML version available.

> I glanced at the entries in my system and I
> noticed they are all gzipped (ending in .gz).

Thanks for the tip.  I've gzipped my Roff manpage now.

>> Will it be copied into /usr/share/man/ by RubyGems/setup.rb/Rip and
>> friends?
> 
> Setup.rb does. RubyGems does not. Not sure about Rip.

Will RubyGems ever follow the FHS style of installation like setup.rb?

Will setup.rb ever follow the keep-everything-together RubyGems style?

What installation style will this Ruby Packaging Standard follow?

So many questions...  Life was easier when I only used RubyGems.  :-/
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