Installing data files

[Nicolas Alvarez]

Alexander Neundorf wrote:
> On Thursday 27 May 2010, John Layt wrote:
>> The other problem I have is that the names of the data files may change
>> over time and releases, or may even be deleted, so just installing
>> changed
>> files may result in obsolete data files being left installed.  I was
>> wondering how this is usually dealt with?  Is there an uninstall
>> function?
>>
>> I was thinking I could delete the already installed files each time
>> before the new set is installed, which seems slightly dodgy to me:
>>
>> file(GLOB _oldfiles ${DATA_INSTALL_DIR}/libkholidays/plan1/holiday_*)
>> if(_oldfiles)
>>     file(REMOVE ${_oldfiles})
>> endif(_oldfiles)
> 
> Hmm, this looks more like a task for package management. I wouldn't do
> that.
> 
>> Again, is this an acceptable thing to do, or is there a better way?
>>
>> Also, how does this affect packagers, do I need to tell them?
> 
> Packagers, what do you say  ?

Removing executables or libraries from a CMakeLists also makes them stay 
around when you're compiling and installing by hand. I don't see anyone 
complaining or working around that :)

For packagers, none of this matters. People building packages run
"make install" into an *empty* installation directory, and create a package 
from it. The package installation tool (like dpkg) then takes care of 
deleting files that were in a previous version and aren't in the new version 
of the package. So removing "old files" won't affect them in any way.

-- 
Nicolas

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