Build from source, install to an arbitrary directory

[prmichaelsen]

Hi Phil et al,

My company has a requirement that all tools used in our services be built from source. The built artifacts are then bundled with the application, a top-level bin is created, and each executable is symlinked from its install directory to a file in the top-level bin.

In standard make, I can use

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./configure --prefix=$INSTALL_DIR to accomplish this.

I found with the perl make setup, I am able to do

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make DESTDIR="$INSTALL_DIR" install but it still installs everything under

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$INSTALL_DIR/usr/local/ instead of just

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$INSTALL_DIR
Further, when I try to run the final symlinked bin, I get an error message like the following:

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Can't locate Image/ExifTool.pm in @INC (@INC contains: $INSTALL_DIR/bin/lib /usr/local/lib64/perl5 /usr/local/share/perl5 /usr/lib64/perl5/vendor_perl /usr/share/perl5/vendor_perl /usr/lib64/perl5 /usr/share/perl5 .) at ./exiftool line 41.

From reading the generated Makefile, I see

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SITEPREFIX = /usr/local
VENDORPREFIX = /usr
INSTALLPRIVLIB = /usr/share/perl5
DESTINSTALLPRIVLIB = $(DESTDIR)$(INSTALLPRIVLIB)
INSTALLSITELIB = /usr/local/share/perl5
DESTINSTALLSITELIB = $(DESTDIR)$(INSTALLSITELIB)

So it does seem like it would be possible to modify something to change the install paths, but I'm not sure what I would change (and whether I would need to hand edit the Makefile or if I can change the Makefile.PL).

I know it might be out-of-scope, but I was wondering if you had any guidance on how I can make and install exiftool from source to an arbitrary directory, symlink to the final install, and still locate required files properly on execution.

Thanks

[prmichaelsen]

Ok, I'm now realizing it might be entirely unnecessary to make at all, it looks like I can run ./exiftool directly from source. Let me investigate and update here.

[Phil Harvey]

Yes.  No build is necessary.