heads up: tcl and tk 8.5

[Michael Thomas]

John Ellson wrote:
> Michael Thomas wrote:
>> John Ellson wrote:
>>  
>>> Michael Thomas wrote:
>>>    
>>>> John Ellson wrote:
>>>>  
>>>>      
>>>>>> The 'restricted auto_path' patch that we are adding will limit the
>>>>>> search to %{_libdir}/tcl8.5 and %{_datadir}/tcl8.5.  This greatly
>>>>>> improves the startup time for most Tcl applications.  However, it
>>>>>> does
>>>>>> require that maintainers of Tcl extension packages make some
>>>>>> changes to
>>>>>> ensure that the extensions get installed into %{_libdir}/tcl8.5 (or
>>>>>> %{_datadir}/tcl8.5) instead of %{_libdir} (or %{_datadir}).  I
>>>>>> will be
>>>>>> happy to help out any maintainers that want help with this change.
>>>>>>                 
>>>>> Will this information be available from some kind of introspection
>>>>> from
>>>>> running tclsh ?
>>>>>             
>>>> Yes.  You can start tclsh and run 'set auto_path'.  This will print out
>>>> a list of the directories that will be searched for packages.
>>>>
>>>>  
>>>>      
>>>>> Has this change been accepted upstream so that it can be relied on on
>>>>> other platforms?
>>>>>             
>>>> I had a discussion with upstream about this, and they blamed the
>>>> problem
>>>> on the distributions installing Tcl and the extensions into too-generic
>>>> directories.  Unfortunately, most extensions were developed to be
>>>> installed directly into /usr/lib and /usr/share, and now need to be
>>>> patched to be installed elsewhere.
>>>>
>>>> In any case, you can always look at the contents of the auto_path
>>>> variable on any platform in Tcl to see where extensions are looked for.
>>>>
>>>> --Mike
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> A bit more clarification please.
>>>
>>> This is not about where to look, its about where to install, so it must
>>> resolve to a single value.
>>>     
>>
>> In that case, no, there is no introspection in Tcl to get this
>> information.  This is because the choice of the directory in which to
>> install depends on whether you are installing an arch-specific or a
>> noarch package.  But the rule is simple:
>>
>> noarch packages should get installed into
>> %{_datadir}/tcl8.5/%{name}-%{version}
>>
>> arch-specific packages should get installed into
>> %{_libdir}/tcl8.5/%{name}-%{version}
>>
>> The proposed Tcl packaging guidelines[1] have some scriptlets that you
>> can use at the top of your spec file to set the installation directory:
>>
>> %{!?tcl_version: %define tcl_version %(echo 'puts $tcl_version' | tclsh)}
>> %{!?tcl_sitelib: %define tcl_sitelib %{_datadir}/tcl%{tcl_version}}
>> %{!?tcl_sitearch: %define tcl_sitearch %{_libdir}/tcl%{tcl_version}}
>>
>> Use %{tcl_sitearch} as the base directory for arch-specific packages,
>> and %{tcl_sitelib} for noarch packages.
>>
>>  
>>> Using a vanilla upstream build of tcl8.5 I get:
>>>    % set auto_path
>>>    /usr/local/lib/tcl8.5 /usr/local/lib
>>>
>>> Should I always install in the first member of the list?  (which would
>>> be /usr/lib/tcl8.5 normally)
>>>
>>> And under that, I presumably install in a package-specific subdirectory?
>>> Such as: /usr/lib/tcl8.5/graphviz/
>>>     
>>
>> Correct.  You could add %{version} to the package-specific subdirectory
>> name so that it's possible to have multiple versions installed at the
>> same time, but that's not a requirement.
>>
>> --Wart
>> [1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackagingDrafts/Tcl
>>
>>   
> 
> Will tclConfig.sh remain in %{_libdir}/tclConfig.sh, or will it now be
> in %{_libdir}/tclsh8.5/tclConfig.sh    ?
> 
> (I think some other distros must do this already, since I already test
> for this in graphviz.)

tclConfig.sh will remain in %{_libdir}/tclConfig.sh.

--Wart