From: Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@...>
Date: 2010-04-21T14:45:22+09:00
Subject: Re: Proposing a Ruby Packaging Standard

On 21/04/10 at 14:01 +0900, Suraj Kurapati wrote:
> 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.  :-/

I think that what is important is that we have a clear set of guidelines
for Ruby library developers to follow, that allow to do both
rubygems-style stuff and setup.rb-style stuff. The goal of this
"standard" should not be to push one or the other solution.
-- 
| Lucas Nussbaum
| lucas@lucas-nussbaum.net   http://www.lucas-nussbaum.net/ |
| jabber: lucas@nussbaum.fr             GPG: 1024D/023B3F4F |