How to use DCMAKE_INSTALL_LIBDIR flag in cmake?

[kevinsmia1939]

Hello,

I am trying to package libmsym into openSUSE Leap and Tumbleweed.
I use cmake and gcc to compile the package.

I tried add the cmake flag as follow:
%cmake -DMSYM_BUILD_PYTHON:BOOL=ON
-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/lib64

Which would place the library in /usr/lib64

However, the openSUSE's repository maintainer noticed that the flag is not correctly labeled, it should instead be
%cmake -DMSYM_BUILD_PYTHON:BOOL=ON
-DCMAKE_INSTALL_LIBDIR=/usr/lib64

For placing library in /usr/lib64
But -DCMAKE_INSTALL_LIBDIR don't seems to do anything.

Thanks.
https://build.opensuse.org/request/show/795267

[mcodev31]

Hi Kevin,

I’m not a cmake expert, but I suspect you mean -DCMAKE_INSTALL_LIB_DIR (note the underscore). I can’t try this since I don’t have access to a computer right now.

On a more general note, it may be easier to distribute the c lib as a separate package from python (e.g. python-libmsym), and add a dependency, since the cmake python options are meant to handle cases here libmsym.so can’t be found by the loader (which it should in /usr/lib64). Also the plan was to add bindings for more languages at some point.

/M

[kevinsmia1939]

Hello,

I just tried -DCMAKE_INSTALL_LIB_DIR, it does not seems to do anything.

For splitting package, you mean to create a 2 package that have -DMSYM_BUILD_PYTHON:BOOL=ON and -DMSYM_BUILD_PYTHON:BOOL=OFF and called the BOOL=ON python-libmsym?

[badshah400]

The standard cmake flag is CMAKE_INSTALL_LIBDIR, not CMAKE_INSTALL_LIB_DIR, please see
https://cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.0/module/GNUInstallDirs.html. The advantage of using the former is that it is defaults to the right FHS directory (lib or lib64 based on architecture). I suspect that because INSTALL_LIB_DIR is explicitly set to lib in the script and then this variable — rather than the standard one — is used as the target for installation, the user is unable to configure the installation directory simply by passing a flag to the cmake command. Actually, they can still use CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX, but that is wrong.

[kevinsmia1939]

Even with
%cmake -DMSYM_BUILD_PYTHON:BOOL=ON
-DCMAKE_INSTALL_LIBDIR=/usr/lib64

or

%cmake -DMSYM_BUILD_PYTHON:BOOL=ON
-DCMAKE_INSTALL_LIB_DIR=/usr/lib64

could not get it to install to /usr/lib64 only the below flag works.

%cmake -DMSYM_BUILD_PYTHON:BOOL=ON
-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/lib64

[mcodev31]

@badshah400
Again, this isn't really my area but at the time this was written, it wasn't certain that I could keep the cmake 2.8 dependency since one of the qc software using this only had a dependency on 2.6 (old clusters difficult to upgrade). So I went with what seemed to be convention at the time for 2.6. Beleive I looked at zlib, which still uses a similar approach.

@kevinsmia1939
I'll try to get around to switching to GNUInstallDirs soon, but I won't be doing much coding for at least a couple of weeks.

[kevinsmia1939]

@badshah400
Again, this isn't really my area but at the time this was written, it wasn't certain that I could keep the cmake 2.8 dependency since one of the qc software using this only had a dependency on 2.6 (old clusters difficult to upgrade). So I went with what seemed to be convention at the time for 2.6. Beleive I looked at zlib, which still uses a similar approach.

@kevinsmia1939
I'll try to get around to switching to GNUInstallDirs soon, but I won't be doing much coding for at least a couple of weeks.

Alright, thanks.