Re: [Libguestfs] Usage of 'no' as external helper

On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 10:02:10PM +0200, Olaf Hering wrote: > > libguestfs and supermin use 'no' instead of either the basename of the > desired application, or 'false', as helper string. This happens when > configure does not find things like rpm or supermin during build. > > Wouldnt it be more logical to use the basename instead of 'no' so that > at runtime one has the chance to install the required packages and in > addition get an obvious error message in verbose mode what external > helper is actually missing? In my package I force a few things like > 'export ZYPPER=zypper' to avoid the unneeded BuildRequires: zypper. But > doing that for every binary that maybe called is cumbersome. > > I think its best to rely on PATH to let libguestfs and supermin packages > find their external helpers at runtime. And one who has a need to > actually hardcode absolute paths to external helpers into his > libguestfs/supermin binaries can do that by doing the 'export > HELPER=/path/to/helper' during his own configure run. > > Thoughts? I suspect it depends on the application on a case-by-case basis.