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Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2023 16:28:13 +0000
From: "Peter Stuge (peter AT stuge DOT se) [via geda-user AT delorie DOT com]" <geda-user AT delorie DOT com>
To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: [geda-user] lepton-sch2pcb: wrong ${prefix} for pcb
References: <20230319121903 DOT 84DEA8497641 AT turkos DOT aspodata DOT se>
 <20230321224848 DOT D85CA8497643 AT turkos DOT aspodata DOT se>
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karl AT aspodata DOT se [via geda-user AT delorie DOT com] wrote:
> In m4/pcb-data-dirs.m4, after some preamble, there is:
>   PCBDATADIR="${datarootdir}/pcb"

I think this file is only used during configure of lepton/geda-gaf.


> The first line of which says:
> "The following variables specify the directories for package installation,"
> which has noting to do with wherever pcb is installed
> or where pcb's files are.

I agree. I guess this is a leftover from when gschem+pcb were more
tightly coupled.


> The point of having the pcb-data-dirs.m4 file seems to allow
> the user to change the default or what autoconf can find out
> itself.

Project-specific m4 files are used to add project-specific behavior
or m4 macros to be used by or included in the configure script so
yes, in particular the AC_ARG_WITH([pcb-datadir], block adds an
option --with-pcb-datadir to configure, which allows setting the
PCB datadir explicitly at geda-gaf configure time.


> I suggest that the variable datarootdir in this file be
> replaced whith something like "dirname $(dirname $(which pcb))".

That would create a new ordering dependency (pcb must be installed
before geda-gaf can be built) and in general create a build
environment dependency (pcb must be installed for building geda-gaf),
both of which are quite undesirable.

It's already not good practice to make a software build depend or
rely on particulars within the build environment, adding in a
dependency on the PATH used at time of configure even less so.

Unfortunately I don't think there's any good heuristic to recognize
the correct directory, otherwise it might be possible to add some
autodetect logic, perhaps searching a list of some common paths and
failing with an error message if nothing satisfactory was found.

However, m4/pcb-data-dir.sm4 in geda-gaf says after the license comment:

# Check where to look for PCB footprints.
# FIXME All of this should be done at runtime.

..soo..


> Crude patch attached, but it should be easy doing this directly in
> the running code.

..perhaps the time has come to move this to runtime now? :)


Kind regards

//Peter