Re: directory tree error in slink

[Daniel Quinlan <quinlan@transmeta.com>]

On Tue, Sep 14, 1999 at 11:45:26PM +0200, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:

>> There should be /usr/local/man/man[1-8] directories installed
>> automatically with the rest of system in slink they are not and there
>> are some problems istalling for ex: povray which's install script is
>> SURE /usr/local/man/man1 exists

Raul Miller <raul@usatoday.com> writes:

> Unfortunately, the FHS specifies that we don't create those directories.
> 
> Which means either povray is buggy or FHS is.

Is this when you are installing povray yourself or for a povray
package?  If it's a povray binary package, it obviously shouldn't use
/usr/local, so I'll assume this is installing povray locally from the
source.

While I don't believe it is wrong for the distribution to include
pre-existing /usr/local/man/man[1-8] directories, it is definitely a
bug in the povray installation to assume that the directories exist.
What if you're installing povray in a new tree or an empty /usr/local
that didn't come with directory stubs?

Most install scripts do something like:

  if ! test -d /usr/local/man/man1; then
    mkdir -p /usr/local/man/man1
  fi

Or just (in Makefile syntax):

  -mkdir -p /usr/local/man/man1

(The '-' means ignore errors.)

Or the equivalent.  (There may be a more correct way, but you get the
idea.)

Dan