Purpose: to contain discussion relating to an installation directory structure that is recommended for people writing tcl extensions or applications.


[LV] Jump right in and add info as you see needed:
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By default, extensions should use two main groups of locations for installing things, one for architecture-independent files, and one for architecture-dependent files.

'''--prefix''' specifies the location of the architecture-independent files (e.g. Tcl scripts, header files, documentation) and is conventionally ''/usr/local'' by default.  Beneath this location, the following places are usually defined:

   '''include''':   Place to put header file(s) needed when writing code against a library.
   '''lib''':   Location where Tcl-only extensions are installed.
   '''lib'''/''extension-version.level'':   Location for ''pkgIndex.tcl'' files, tcl files, etc.
   '''bin''':   Place to install Tcl-only applications.
   '''man''':   Place to install nroff manual pages.
   '''share''': Place to install miscellaneous other files, such as HTML pages.

'''--exec-prefix''' specifies the location of architecture-dependent files (binary extensions, etc.)

   '''lib''':   Location where binary extensions and their ''pkgIndex.tcl'' are installed.
   '''lib'''/''extension-version.level'':   Location for ''pkgIndex.tcl'' files, .so/.dll files, static archives (.a, .lib), etc.
   '''bin''':   Location where binary applications are installed.
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Note that the '''--exec-prefix''' defaults to the same value as '''--prefix'''

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[jenglish] I find it works better to put the entire package runtime in a sibling directory of '''info library'''.  This is ''usually'' the same as ''${libdir}'', but not always.  

Splitting up architecture-dependant (e.g. shared libraries) and architecture-independant (e.g., scripts) parts makes it more difficult for the former to locate the latter.
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It is the eternal difficulty of keeping parallel versions in sync versus
keeping a single copy of sharable code and a binary for each platform.

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What are your thoughts about installed extensions having version numbers in
their directory names?

Some people use multiple versions of an extension to keep from having to
relink compiled language based programs.  Other people see no reason to
distribute anything more than one version and just expect people to install
things into seperate trees if parallel versions need to be maintained.

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What about demos?  I would prefer to see demo executables be installed
in $prefix/bin, instead of the current practice of some extensions of putting
them into $prefix/lib/extension$version.$level/demos or whatever .

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''[CL] noted in [the comp.lang.tcl newsgroup] on the problem of where to put config files:''
What a mess.  Someone ought to go off for a few years,
and create a useful solution to such common and stupid
deployment problems.  Maybe it should be called TclKit,
or perhaps called that, but renamed to [StarKit].  Just
think if it were portable, too!  The masses would re-
joice.

''to which [BBH] replied:'' Amen, Brother Laird!