Installer should allow installation of macport in custom locations - for users without admin access

[Mark Farnell]

So would it be a good idea to force *all* ports to be relocatable?
(i.e. only hardcode path relative to base path, *not* absolute path)
Will this be difficult to be enforced by a lintian-like tool?

I think MacPort is mainly for user programs and libraries.  Admin
tools such as daemons and OS maintenance (such as stuff in /bin and
/sbin)  should have already been in the OS X itself rather than in
MacPort.

On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 1:42 AM, Rainer Müller <raimue at macports.org> wrote:
> On 2010-07-29 11:57 , Mark Farnell wrote:
>> Are there any way to make ports relocable?
>>
>> In OS X, applications are placed in Foo.app
>
> I see a lot of applications in /usr/bin.
>
>> whereas shared libraries (Framework) and data are placed under /Library
>
> There are many libraries in /usr/lib and lots of data in /usr/share.
>
>> If Foo.app is in /Applications, then it will look at shared data in /Library
>>
>> whereas
>>
>> if Foo.app is in $(HOME)/Applications, then it will look at shared
>> data in $HOME/Library
>
> Isn't such data usually embedded inside the application bundle at
> Contents/Resources/?
>
>> So under OS X, applications are relocatable
>
> No, application *bundles*, those special directories ending in .app,
> ought to be relocatable. There are other binary files which you cannot
> move around as you like.
>
>> So are there any way to compile ports so that the binaries are
>> relocatable (i.e. look at relative path)?
>
> Software might hardcode the path they will look for shared data. You
> would need to patch that to determine paths at runtime.
>
> By default the linker writes the path to each library into the binary.
> There are ways to change that later with install_name_tool, but that
> requires to pass -headerpad_max_install_names to the linker.
>
> While I am not saying it isn't possible when putting enough effort into
> it, I don't think there is really a need for this feature. Users
> installing to /opt/local can easily follow our documentation, our HOWTOs
> or other instructions on the net.
>
> Rainer
>