Re: meson oddities

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.

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).