From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2015 19:23:24 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] Makefile: Use the same source directory for "ln -s" as for "ln" / "cp"
Message-ID: <xmqqmw4skvrn.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <D060A1E5-DAF3-49D5-B0B3-F831BCDFD41F@gmail.com>

"Kyle J. McKay" <mackyle@gmail.com> writes:

>> -        ln -s "git$X" "$$bindir/$$p" 2>/dev/null || \
>> +        ln -s "$$bindir/git$X" "$$bindir/$$p" 2>/dev/null || \
>
> This is wrong.
>
> Currently with symlinks you will get installed into bindir something
> like this:
>
>   git
>   git-tag -> git
>   git-show -> git
>
> etc.
>
> With your change you would have
>
>   git
>   git-tag -> /usr/local/libexec/git-core/git
>   git-show -> /usr/local/libexec/git-core/git
>
> And I don't think we want that.  While those absolute path symlinks
> are technically correct,...

It is not even correct, is it?

When DESTDIR is set to allow you to install into a temporary place
only so that you can "tar" up the resulting filesystem tree, bindir
points at the location we need to "cp" the built programs into, i.e.
inside DESTDIR.