Re: meson oddities

Hi,

On 2023-01-04 12:35:35 +0100, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> On 16.11.22 18:07, Andres Freund wrote:
> > > > If I just want to install postgres into a prefix without 'postgresql' added in
> > > > a bunch of directories, e.g. because I already have pg-$version to be in the
> > > > prefix, there's really no good way to do so - you can't even specify
> > > > --sysconfdir or such, because we just override that path.
> > >
> > > At least for the libraries, the point of the 'postgresql' subdir IMO
> > > is to keep backend-loadable extensions separate from random libraries.
> > > It's not great that we may fail to do that depending on what the
> > > initial part of the library path is.
> >
> > Agreed, extensions really should never be in a path searched by the dynamic
> > linker, even if the prefix contains 'postgres'.
> >
> > To me that's a separate thing from adding postgresql to datadir, sysconfdir,
> > includedir, docdir... On a green field I'd say the 'extension library'
> > directory should just always be extensions/ or such.
>
> I think we should get the two build systems to produce the same installation
> layout when given equivalent options.

I'm not convinced that that's the right thing to do. Distributions have
helper infrastructure for buildsystems - why should we make it harder for them
by deviating further from the buildsystem defaults?

I have yet to hear an argument why installing libraries below
/usr/[local]/lib/{x86_64,i386,...}-linux-{gnu,musl,...}/ is the wrong thing to
do on Debian based systems (or similar, choosing lib64 over lib on RH based
systems). But at the same time I haven't heard of an argument why we should
break existing scripts building with autoconf for this. To me a different
buildsystem is a convenient point to adapt to build path from the last decade.

> Unless someone comes up with a proposal to address the above broader issues,
> also taking into account current packaging practices etc., then I think we
> should do a short-term solution to either port the subdir-appending to the
> meson scripts or remove it from the makefiles (or maybe a bit of both).

Just to be clear, with 'subdir-appending' you mean libdir defaulting to
'lib/x86_64-linux-gnu' (or similar)? Or do you mean adding 'postgresql' into
various dirs when the path doesn't already contain postgres?

I did try to mirror the 'postgresql' adding bit in the meson build.

Greetings,

Andres Freund