Re: find-paths.el and run-in-place

ms> The design is documented in the XEmacs manual under "Startup ms> Paths." I admit that not every specific decision as it ms> pertains to each specific environment is covered there. I ms> wouldn't know how to do that. Ah, OK. This particular generic decision is documented there, upon re-reading. However, given that in practice it worked the way it used to work, it was quite easy to misinterpret. Sorry, I missed it. Stephen> What I expected is that XEmacs would look for a "package Stephen> root" (ie, a directory containing one or more *-packages Stephen> subdirectories, and not necessarily the same as an Stephen> "XEmacs root") named $datadir/xemacs. ms> Yes, indeed, if XEmacs can make a reasonably assumption that ms> there is a fully populated $datadir part of an XEmacs root ms> hierarchy. My point is that packages need not live under the XEmacs root. In fact, for almost all run-in-place configurations, they will not. But there should be a default "package root". $datadir/xemacs is the logical candidate. Stephen> In a vanilla-configured XEmacs, that is Stephen> /usr/local/lib/xemacs. ms> Yes, and that's precisely what you wanted me to change. I can ms> probably dig up the thread if you want. $datadir/xemacs/ is not an appropriate marker for an XEmacs root. But $datadir/xemacs/ containing *-packages/ _is_ an appropriate marker for a "package root." When I recommended that change, I didn't realize that XEmacs did not distinguish the two kinds of root. Stephen> Can you point me to some of these bug reports? And if it Stephen> is not obvious from the reports themselves, explain why Stephen> the preferred solution in those environments is not Stephen> --with-prefix=no? ms> These people have an installed *old* XEmacs and their compiled ms> in-place *new* XEmacs is picking up its packages. Which is _exactly_ what packages are all about! Different XEmacs binary, same Lisp libraries. Most people consider this desirable. And consider what happens when they install *new* XEmacs. It has the same $prefix, therefore it gets installed next to *old* XEmacs. Thus it finds *old* packages below the (now fully-populated) XEmacs root. Oops. (And this happens whatever the setting of --with-prefix.) Therefore, to run correctly when installed, *new* XEmacs should have a different $datadir or --package-path. Thus I conclude that people in those environments should be setting non-default options in any case. Am I missing something? -- Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN Don't ask how you can "do" free software business; ask what your business can "do for" free software.