Re: Fixed directory locations in installs

Peter Eisentraut wrote:

>Bruce Momjian wrote:
>
>
>>Also, Win32 installs are going to want to be more directory
>>independent than Unix.
>>
>>
>
>Why?
>

Common practice, for one thing. Windows programs are typically
relocatable, and Windows admins regard programs that rely on hardcoded
paths very poorly indeed.

The usual location used by an installer is something like
%ProgramFiles%/progname or %ProgramFiles%/progname/version - the
definition of %ProgramFiles% is determined by the machine it is being
installed on, not by the installer, and certainly can't be set at
compile time. The machine might not even have a C: drive, for instance.

But this is not only a Windows issue, as Tom reminded us recently. If I
understood him correctly, there have been calls for relocatable
installations from other binary packagers.

>
>
>
>>Because Win32 can probe for the location of the binary, it seems it
>>should check to see if it can find libdir and sharedir own its own
>>and set those GUC values accordingly as part of initdb.
>>
>>
>
>This is just going to open up the possibility of silently finding the
>wrong files.
>
>

Maybe it could be improved by using more version markers?

cheers

andrew