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Date: Tue, 18 May 2010 15:57:25 -0400
From: Wesley Shields <wxs@atarininja.org>
To: Anonymous <swell.k@gmail.com>
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References: <86hbm5yjjh.fsf@gmail.com> <20100518115611.GA45921@atarininja.org>
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Cc: Ion-Mihai Tetcu <itetcu@FreeBSD.org>, freebsd-ports@freebsd.org,
	Doug Barton <dougb@freebsd.org>
Subject: Re: preferred place for system-wide config files
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On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 10:50:07PM +0400, Anonymous wrote:
> Matthew Seaman <m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk> writes:
> 
> > On 18/05/2010 12:56:11, Wesley Shields wrote:
> >> On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 07:29:22AM +0400, Anonymous wrote:
> >>> a little confusion arised from ports/146627.
> >>>
> >>> The Porter's Handbook defines PREFIX as the place where port should
> >>> install its files including config files. However, it doesn't say where
> >>> the port should try to read its config files that may not exist:
> >>> LOCALBASE/etc or PREFIX/etc? Until recently I assumed such files as
> >>> installed together with the port unless they belong to some other port.
> >>>
> >>> For example, many GNU_CONFIGURE ports look for config files under
> >>> SYSCONFDIR that's usually under PREFIX/etc and some of them don't
> >>> install config files nor samples. A few examples: xorg-server,
> >>> subversion, git. Should such ports be modified to use LOCALBASE/etc?
> >> 
> >> PREFIX/etc is the correct place. Very few ports touch LOCALBASE at all,
> >> and when they do it's explicitly requested. I'm thinking of bind here as
> >> an example.
> >
> > The principle is that PREFIX is where *this* port is going to be
> > installed, but LOCALBASE is where you should assume any prior dependency
> > ports have been installed.
> 
> This still doesn't clarify where to look for files that are *not*
> installed, e.g. config files. Such files can be created by user and only
> used by the port itself when they exist. Does it matter whether they're
> installed or not to choose LOCALBASE over PREFIX?

PREFIX.

-- WXS