From octave-maintainers-request at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu  Wed May 21 17:18:55 1997
Subject: Re: octave version
From: "John W. Eaton" <jwe at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu>
To: Doug Warner <warnerd at trinidad dot cs dot dartmouth dot edu>
Cc: Andreas dot Weingessel at ci dot tuwien dot ac dot at, octave-maintainers@bevo.che.wisc.edu
Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 17:17:53 -0500

On 21-May-1997, Doug Warner <warnerd at trinidad dot cs dot dartmouth dot edu> wrote:

| > If someone has the time to look into it, it would be nice if we could
| > come up with a directory structure that will actually work for people
| > who want to keep multiple versions installed.  I think the $prefix/lib
| > and $prefix/include/octave directories are still problems, but there
| > may be others.
| 
| Just using $prefix/lib/octave/$version for the first case would work.

For 2.1, I've set things up to install the libraries in

  $libdir/octave-$version

and to create the following symbolic link in $libdir:

  octave -> octave-$version

The link is there so that you can just use (for example)
-L/usr/local/lib/octave to get the latest version without having to
remember the version number.

| To handle the include files, something like
| $prefix/include/octave-$version/octave/*.h 
| should be fairly transparent.

Ok, I did this, along with creating the following symbolic link in
$includedir ($prefix/include):

  octave -> octave-$version/octave

Then you can use

  #include <octave/foo.h>

and (for example) -I/usr/local/include to get the latest set of
headers without having to remember the version number.

| There's also $prefix/bin/octave-bug, which has version specific info.

I also added a -$version suffix to octave-bug and mkoctfile for 2.1,
with links like we currently have for the octave binary itself.

I think the only thing left is the info file.  Since this is used by
Octave's on-line help system, it really needs to match the version
that is installed.

Would people object to creating subdirectories in $infodir?  For example,

  $infodir/octave-$version

with the symbolic link

  $infodir/octave -> octave-$version

The link could be used so that you wouldn't have to modify your
$infodir/dir file each time a new version is installed.

jwe