Re: coreutils and GNU_PROGRAM_PREFIX

[David Brownlee <abs%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On 27 May 2012 17:25, Aleksey Cheusov <cheusov%tut.by@localhost> wrote:
> From time to time GNU coreutils is needed for building third party
> software. By default all executables in sysutils/coreutils are installed
> with a prefix "g" (ls as gls, wc as gwc etc.) in order to avoid clashes
> with base system utilities.  The problem is this prefix is changable by
> user, for example executable prefix may be set to ''. As a result
> dependents may fail to build due to absense of required tool (gfmt is
> required but absent, for example). In my view GNU_PROGRAM_PREFIX creates
> more problems than it solves.
>
> The attached patch does the following:
> - remove GNU_PROGRAM_PREFIX variable from coreutils and gnuls
> - always set executable prefix to "g"
> - remove unnecessary CONFLICTS
> - create symlinks under bin/coreutils/ directory, e.g. ls, wc, cat etc.,
>   to appropriate gls, gwc, gcat in bin/.
> - those who want GNU_PROGRAM_PREFIX='' needn't rebuild coreutils and gnuls.
>
> Symlinks are necessary for those users who want to call these utils by
> their original names (PATH).
>
> I think other GNU packages may be converted the same way
> (archivers/gsharutils, archivers/gcpio, devel/m4 and some others).
>
> Comments?

Excellent plan - thanks for cleaning this up!