Re: [Bug #117070] README instructions for configuring Setup are not helpful
[Moved over from a discussion in the bugs list; this relates to bug: http://sourceforge.net/bugs/?func=detailbug&bug_id=117070&group_id=5470 Please be sure to CC: Jon on all replies.] Jon Ribbens writes:
Ok, here's the plan: Change Setup.in to Setup.dist, and provide a copy as Setup. Since this doesn't help if the source and build directories differ, configure.in can be modified to create Setup if (and only if!) it doesn't exist, by copying it from $srcdir/Modules/. I have the changes to configure.in, configure, Setup*, and Modules/Makefile.pre.in ready, but I still need to update the instructions in the README & possibly elsewhere. Does this sound agreeable? -Fred -- Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake at acm.org> PythonLabs Team Member
"Fred L. Drake, Jr." <fdrake@acm.org> wrote:
Sounds cool. I would mention in the first part of the install instructions about the Setup file, that you edit it to change the available modules (this concept is not obvious if you don't know how Python works!), that you can edit it now but if you have not installed Python before it is best to try building without editing it first and that there are more instructions further down the README. You might like to mention 'readline' here too to head-off newsgroup questions about why up-arrow doesn't work ;-). Cheers Jon
[Fred]
Sure, except I'm not comfortable with having two files with identical contents under CVS control. How about not checking in Setup, but creating it in configure if it doesn't exist? This is necessary also for the following reason: when you build in a different tree than the source tree, you should get a fresh copy of Setup in the build tree -- another copy of Setup in the source tree is useless. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)
I think that would be fine so long as the README file makes it clear that you edit the Setup file after './configure' but before 'make'.
One thing -- it's perfectly fine to edit Setup after running Make for the first time. You just have to run Make again. The Makefiles are designed for this. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)
Fred> Ok, here's the plan: Change Setup.in to Setup.dist, and provide a copy as Setup. I don't like the idea that a file I am supposed to edit (Setup) would be in the CVS repository where it could conceivably get messed with by a "cvs up" command. The current makefile target that emits a warning if Setup.in (.dist) is newer than Setup should be sufficient to alert users when Setup needs to be looked at. -- Skip Montanaro (skip@mojam.com) http://www.mojam.com/ http://www.musi-cal.com/
"Fred L. Drake, Jr." <fdrake@acm.org> wrote:
Sounds cool. I would mention in the first part of the install instructions about the Setup file, that you edit it to change the available modules (this concept is not obvious if you don't know how Python works!), that you can edit it now but if you have not installed Python before it is best to try building without editing it first and that there are more instructions further down the README. You might like to mention 'readline' here too to head-off newsgroup questions about why up-arrow doesn't work ;-). Cheers Jon
[Fred]
Sure, except I'm not comfortable with having two files with identical contents under CVS control. How about not checking in Setup, but creating it in configure if it doesn't exist? This is necessary also for the following reason: when you build in a different tree than the source tree, you should get a fresh copy of Setup in the build tree -- another copy of Setup in the source tree is useless. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)
I think that would be fine so long as the README file makes it clear that you edit the Setup file after './configure' but before 'make'.
One thing -- it's perfectly fine to edit Setup after running Make for the first time. You just have to run Make again. The Makefiles are designed for this. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)
Fred> Ok, here's the plan: Change Setup.in to Setup.dist, and provide a copy as Setup. I don't like the idea that a file I am supposed to edit (Setup) would be in the CVS repository where it could conceivably get messed with by a "cvs up" command. The current makefile target that emits a warning if Setup.in (.dist) is newer than Setup should be sufficient to alert users when Setup needs to be looked at. -- Skip Montanaro (skip@mojam.com) http://www.mojam.com/ http://www.musi-cal.com/
participants (4)
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Fred L. Drake, Jr. -
Guido van Rossum -
Jon Ribbens -
Skip Montanaro