Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@2ndquadrant.com> writes:
> Peter Eisentraut wrote:
>> On 11/11/15 12:34 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
>>> I was thinking more of removing the "missing" script and associated logic
>>> entirely, rather than making PGXS a special case.
>> Well, about a year ago people were arguing for the opposite change in
>> the documentation build. It used to default all the build tool
>> variables to programs that weren't there, and people got all confused
>> about that, so we stuck "missing" in there across the board.
> Ah, right :-( It's obviously difficult to arrange a compromise that
> pleases everyone here. I think it's fair to keep "missing" for the doc
> build and remove it from Perl/bison/flex, regardless of pgxs; extensions
> cannot build doc files anyway.
I took a closer look at the originally proposed patch at
http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/5633BA23.3030201@BlueTreble.com
and realized that my worry about it was based on a misconception:
I thought it'd get installed into someplace where it might interfere
with other packages. But actually, it would get installed into the
same place we put install-sh, namely$PREFIX/lib/postgresql/pgxs/config/
(omitting postgresql/ if PREFIX already contains something PG-specific).
So the argument that it could break anybody else seems pretty thin.
Given our inability to come to a consensus on rejiggering the uses of
"missing", I think maybe we should just apply the original patch and
call it good.
regards, tom lane