Re: Symlinks from Tools to Applications

[Richard Frith-Macdonald]

On 18 Feb 2007, at 10:33, David Ayers wrote:

> Nicola Pero schrieb:
> > This might sound heretical, but I'd like to make our FHS  
> > integration more tight by
> > symlinking app binaries from the Tools directory. :-)
> >
> > In other words, when you install GNUMail.app I'd like to create  
> > the symlink
> >
> > GNUSTEP_LOCAL_TOOLS/GNUMail --> GNUSTEP_LOCAL_APPS/GNUMail.app/ 
> > {...}/GNUMail
> >
> > (in the non-flattened case we'd put the symlink in the appropriate  
> > subdir).
> > (eg, in FHS that would mean
> >
> > /usr/bin/GNUMail --> /usr/lib/GNUstep/Apps/GNUMail.app/{...}/GNUMail)
> [snip]
> > Any objections to me adding this symlink ?
>
> I think the general idea is good!   Yet I don't understand the
> non-flattened case.  Wouldn't we need to create symlink in the target
> specific executable directory?

If it's a shell script rather than a symlink, it could have logic for  
finding the correct executable.
However, I would have thought that for most systems, a symlink to the  
most 'native' executable would do ... ie you don't want a link to a  
ppc binary on an intel machine.  The only case where you have a  
problem would be using different library combos all of which are  
'native'.  In that case you would have to select which version you  
want, either at install time (for symlinks) or optionally at runtime  
(shell scripts could query gnustep-config/GNUstep.conf).
I think chris armstrong is right that shell scripts are a better  
option than symlinks.