[Rd] standardized add-on package configuration

[Kurt Hornik]

Several add-on packages (e.g., most DBMS ones, XML, ...) come with a
configure script which tries to find headers and libraries required by
the package.  I was wondering whether we could/should standardize how
this is done.

In what follows, suppose package FOO needs functionality BAR.

* One approach would be via command-line arguments to configure.  There
  seems to be no standard for this.  GNOME uses

	--with-FOO-prefix
	--with-FOO-exec-prefix

  in several of its components.  However, this, assumes that the GNU
  standards are followed in the sense that headers go into

	FOO-prefix/include

  and libs go into

	FOO-exec-prefix/lib

  which might not necessarily be the case.

  Alternatively, we could have

	--with-FOO-libraries
	--with-FOO-libs

  and

	--with-FOO-includes
	--with-FOO-headers

  (one of each only, of course).

* The other possibility would be via environment variables, such as
  CPPFLAGS and LIBS or maybe FOO_CPPFLAGS and FOO_LIBS.  (E.g., for
  package XML we would use LIBXML_CPPFLAGS and LIBXML_LIBS.)

I think the simplest solution would be via CPPFLAGS and LIBS because it
is not package-specific.  So installation would happen via

	CPPFLAGS=... LIBS=... R CMD INSTALL /path/to/pkg.tar.gz

(did not check if this works now).

Now I did not check all packages, so is there something I may be
overlooking?

(Once we agree on a standard, I would like to document it in R-exts.)

-k
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
r-devel mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html
Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe"
(in the "body", not the subject !)  To: r-devel-request@stat.math.ethz.ch
_._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._