MacPorts automake and python

[Mojca Miklavec]

On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 9:47 PM, Adam Mercer wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 2:55 PM, Sean Farley wrote:
>
>> I tend to agree with you but need help seeing how this worked
>> before. What path did automake pick up before this change?
>
> If you look at the patch you can see the original paths:
>
> <http://trac.macports.org/browser/trunk/dports/devel/automake/files/patch-m4-python.m4.diff>
>
> The original paths are:
>
> AC_SUBST([PYTHON_PREFIX], ['${prefix}'])
> AC_SUBST([PYTHON_EXEC_PREFIX], ['${exec_prefix}'])

The way how I imagine it to work in a user-friendly way (variable
names and ways to achieve that may vary):

* MacPorts (or the Python PortGroup) always sets something equivalent to
    export PYTHON_PREFIX=`$PYTHON -c "import sys;
sys.stdout.write(sys.prefix);"`
which takes precedence over defaults (in the same way as MacPorts
always sets LDFLAGS='-L/opt/local/lib...' or --prefix=/opt/local)

* User can always set PYTHON_PREFIX=/any/path and that setting is also
obeyed (takes priority over --prefix=...)

* In all other cases install to ${prefix} / ${exec_prefix} (as used to
be the case).

Mojca