Re: packaging games

[Jason Stechschulte <stech@enormousplow.com>]

On Sat, Nov 23, 2002 at 08:39:40PM -0600, Steve Baker wrote:
> I have the 'configure' script generate that as a '#define' so the
> program can know where the files will go when you do a 'make install'.

Ok, that is what occurred to me as I was typing my post.  I guess I
should just start reading up on autoconf and automake, and then have
that do a #define also.

> Additionally, I have the program check other 'likely' places where
> it's data files might have been abandoned.
> 
> Check in this order:
> 
>   1) getenv ( "FRED_DATADIR" )
>   2) The current working directory.
>   3) The place where the configure script will install it.
>   4) The place it was compiled from (as given by the 'configure'
>      script.
>   5) /usr/local/games/fred
>   6) /usr/share/games/fred
>   7) /usr/games/fred
> 
> I find the simplest thing is to try fopen'ing a file that I know 
> exists in my data directory.  If the file doesn't open - then I try
> the next likely location on my list.  You could use 'stat' if you
> need more info.

This makes sense too.  I never really thought about just falling back to
a bunch of the likely candidates.

> ...I don't think games should be putting stuff in /etc - configuration
> files belong in someplace like: ~/.fredrc

That is a good point.  I guess I never really noticed that nearly every
game I've ever installed has worked this way.  The one exception I did
notice on my system is nethack.

> >If so, is there a library I can use to get the path that checks /etc
> >and ~/ automatically...
> 
> Why do you need a libray?  It's only 3 lines of code:
> 
>   char s [ 1000 ] ;
>   sprintf ( s, "%s/.fredrc", getenv("HOME") ) ;
>   FILE *fd = fopen ( s, "r" ) ;
> 
> ...easy. (Well, you'll be doing more error checks - but still)...

I know it is very easy.  I just figured it is something that nearly
every program has to do, so maybe there exists some system library that
handles this and other things.  I just wanted to make sure that however
I did it, I was doing it the standard way.

-- 
Jason Stechschulte
stech@enormousplow.com
http://www.enormousplow.com

Faith is under the left nipple.
                -- Martin Luther