Re: [BUG] `make install' partly ignores `NO_INSTALL_HARDLINKS'

Đoàn Trần Công Danh  [off-list ref] writes:

On 2020-08-14 10:26:24-0700, Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

quoted

Since both git-citool and git-gui will be installed into same
directory "$(libexecdir)", I think it would make more sense to use:

	LN = ln -s

here instead?

In the top-level Makefile, INSTALL_SYMLINKS make macro does exist,
but it is not exported to submakes.  If it were, something like

    ifdef INSTALL_SYMLINKS
	LN = ln -s
    else
    ifdef NO_INSTALL_HARDLINKS
	LN = cp
    else
	LN = ln
    endif
    endif

might become possible, but you'd need to audit what is fed to $(LN)
at the locations the macro is used and make necessary adjustment
accordingly.  "cp A ../B" or "ln A ../B" will make a usable copy of
file A appear inside ../B directory, but "ln -s A ../B" will not,
and I didn't see if all uses of $(LN) was to give synonyms to what
is already installed, or some of them were truly installing from the
build location when I gave the "something along this line" example.

Yes, the top-level Makefile seems to have a special branch for
BUILT_INS, in which, we will create symlink for those builtin in
libexecdr if NO_INSTALL_HARDLINKS is defined.

Did you mean pieces like this?

	for p in $(filter $(install_bindir_programs),$(BUILT_INS)); do \
		$(RM) "$$bindir/$$p" && \
		test -n "$(INSTALL_SYMLINKS)" && \
		ln -s "git$X" "$$bindir/$$p" || \
		{ test -z "$(NO_INSTALL_HARDLINKS)" && \
		  ln "$$bindir/git$X" "$$bindir/$$p" 2>/dev/null || \
		  ln -s "git$X" "$$bindir/$$p" 2>/dev/null || \
		  cp "$$bindir/git$X" "$$bindir/$$p" || exit; } \
	done && \

The symlinks happen ONLY when INSTALL_SYMLINKS is asked for.  Not
all filesystems support symbolic links, hardlinks never suffer from
dangling link problem, and often they are cheaper.

I was aiming for something like this to make git-gui a bit more
consistent with top-level Git, with or without INSTALL_SYMLINKS
exported:

So with or without optional INSTALL_SYMLINKS exported, what I gave
you is what is the most consistent with the top-level, that is, if
INSTALL_SYMLINKS is there, we do "ln -s".  Otherwise, we check
NO_INSTALL_HARDLINKS and we do either "ln" or "cp".