Greetings, I am building Python 2.3 in an heterogenous environment where I want all of the platform-independent code to be shared and the platform specific code kept segregated. In particular I have a structure like /foo/bar/python/include /foo/bar/python/lib /foo/bar/python/man for the platform independent files, and /foo/bar/python/RH72-gcc-3.2 /foo/bar/python/sol-CC ... for platform-specific directories and files (bin/, include/, and lib/). Getting this to work is easily accomplished with --prefix and --exec-prefix when running configure on each platform: --prefix=/foo/bar/python --exec-prefix=/foo/bar/python/RH72-gcc-3.2 But... These builds are put under source control and are read-only once they are checked in. Hence the problem: If /foo/bar/python/include and its contents are read-only then following installs fail to put pyconfig.h (a platform-dependent file) into the platform-specific include directory because the $(INSTALL_DATA) in the 'inclinstall' target fails and the final line in that target (to install pyconfig.h) never runs. Clear as mud? The main thing I want to do is avoid reinstalling the shared files after the first time, since I'm building this on many different platforms. My proposed solution to this is to move the $(INSTALL_DATA) for pyconfig.h from the bottom of the inclinstall target to before the loop that installs the shared headers. Then that step will succeed and it doesn't matter whether or not the other INSTALL_DATA calls fail. Make sense? This begs another install target, which just installs the items that end up in the exec-prefix directories. Then on each platform I can just install the platform-specific code. Thoughts? Thanks in advance, tree -- Tom Emerson Basis Technology Corp. Software Architect http://www.basistech.com "Beware the lollipop of mediocrity: lick it once and you suck forever"