Re: [HACKERS] make install fails in perl5 ...

Tom Lane wrote:
> 
> Brook Milligan <brook@trillium.NMSU.Edu> writes:
> > No.  Why can't we rely on people using --with-perl correctly to
> > specify if they do or do not want perl.  The whole point of the recent
> > run-around with the perl Makefile stuff was so that postgres could be
> > installed without perl and later someone could do the normal perl
> > install in that directory.  You get this functionality by running
> > configure without the --with-perl option and all is well.
> 
> > What am I missing?
> 
> What you're missing is that that renders configure --with-perl
> practically useless.
> 
> If you say --with-perl, that not only builds the perl module along with
> postgres (cool, especially if we ever arrange for pre-install testing),
> but also tries to *install* it along with postgres (not so cool).
> The permissions required to do the install may be different for postgres
> itself and a perl module.  They *are* different if you follow the
> recommended install procedure of making postgres be an unprivileged
> user.
> 
> I'm with Marc on this one, actually; I've been hacking around this
> permissions problem by chmod'ing my perl tree when I was about to run
> a postgres install, and that's not cool.  Becoming root in order to
> install is a band-aid, not a proper solution.
> 
> After I sent off my previous message I realized that it still wasn't
> quite right; the install-perl Makefile rule should rebuild the perl
> module with "make all" even if it doesn't have permissions to install
> the result.  That way, if I come along and su to the Perl file owner
> and do make install in interfaces/perl5, I don't need write permission
> on the perl module files (which are still postgres's).  In a setup like
> mine, where the Perl file owner is not root but another unprivileged
> account much like postgres, it should be possible to do all these
> installs without ever becoming root (except to make the initial
> /usr/local/pgsql directory).
> 
> I'll fix this this afternoon, unless I hear a better objection...

I think you are headed in this direction, but istm that the --with-xxx
flags on configure should work for any package at any time. So someone
doing an installation can look at the "./configure --help" output and
say "I think I want those", and actually have it do the right thing,
stopping before it does the wrong thing. So, --with-perl should enable
perl building (by just setting USE_PERL or something?) but stop short of
requiring root access to the best installation location during the main
Postgres install.

I should be able to override the "--with" settings from configure with
my Makefile.custom, so I can reinstall the entire Postgres package just
by copying Makefile.custom and rerunning configure without major command
line parameters.

I suspect that the tcl/tk stuff doesn't quite work this way at the
moment, and that the perl stuff needs a bit of adjustment also. I'll
look at the ODBC stuff to get it in line if it isn't already.
                  - Tom