default prefix not honored, gzip 1.3.13, possibly before?

[Zube]

A newly installed CentOS 5.3 x86_64 machine, with a mostly unpopulated
/usr/local.  gzip has never been installed under /usr/local, the
only gzip that exists is the local system one (/usr/bin/gzip, a link
to /bin/gzip).

I run:

./configure
gmake
gmake install

and it drops the install in /usr/bin.  Starting on line 19611 of the
configure script, the prefix is changed based on where gzip is
currently installed.  This is surprising and annoying behavior.
The configure script is explicit:

./configure --help

***

Installation directories:
  --prefix=PREFIX         install architecture-independent files in PREFIX
                          [/usr/local]

By default, `make install' will install all the files in
`/usr/local/bin', `/usr/local/lib' etc.

***

Thanks to this errant behavior (off the top of my head, I know of no
other GNU program that does this), I'm going to have a bit of manual
undo to do.  I can force the build to do what I want with:

./configure --prefix=/usr/local

but dear me, I shouldn't have to.

Could you please either document this behavior and change the output of
./configure --help or remove the check completely?  It makes no sense
to change the default install location based on where gzip is found.

Cheers,
Zube

[Jim Meyering]

Zube wrote:

> A newly installed CentOS 5.3 x86_64 machine, with a mostly unpopulated
> /usr/local.  gzip has never been installed under /usr/local, the
> only gzip that exists is the local system one (/usr/bin/gzip, a link
> to /bin/gzip).
>
> I run:
>
> ./configure
> gmake
> gmake install
>
> and it drops the install in /usr/bin.  Starting on line 19611 of the
> configure script, the prefix is changed based on where gzip is
> currently installed.  This is surprising and annoying behavior.
> The configure script is explicit:
>
> ./configure --help
>
> ***
>
> Installation directories:
>   --prefix=PREFIX         install architecture-independent files in PREFIX
>                           [/usr/local]
>
> By default, `make install' will install all the files in
> `/usr/local/bin', `/usr/local/lib' etc.
>
> ***
>
> Thanks to this errant behavior (off the top of my head, I know of no
> other GNU program that does this), I'm going to have a bit of manual
> undo to do.  I can force the build to do what I want with:
>
> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local
>
> but dear me, I shouldn't have to.
>
> Could you please either document this behavior and change the output of
> ./configure --help or remove the check completely?  It makes no sense
> to change the default install location based on where gzip is found.

Thanks for the report.
That is indeed surprising, and IMHO undesirable.
However, the logs suggest that gzip's installation process has been
working that way (using AC_PREFIX_PROGRAM(gzip), now in configure.ac)
for more than 10 years, so removing that "feature" would probably cause
more harm than good.

The only alternative I can imagine would be to make configure
fail if --prefix=/something is not specified.  And I'm sure some
would object to that, too.  So maybe the status quo is best.

[Jim Meyering]

Jim Meyering wrote:

> Zube wrote:
>> A newly installed CentOS 5.3 x86_64 machine, with a mostly unpopulated
>> /usr/local.  gzip has never been installed under /usr/local, the
>> only gzip that exists is the local system one (/usr/bin/gzip, a link
>> to /bin/gzip).
>>
>> I run:
>>
>> ./configure
>> gmake
>> gmake install
>>
>> and it drops the install in /usr/bin.  Starting on line 19611 of the
>> configure script, the prefix is changed based on where gzip is
>> currently installed.  This is surprising and annoying behavior.
>> The configure script is explicit:
>>
>> ./configure --help
>>
>> ***
>>
>> Installation directories:
>>   --prefix=PREFIX         install architecture-independent files in PREFIX
>>                           [/usr/local]
>>
>> By default, `make install' will install all the files in
>> `/usr/local/bin', `/usr/local/lib' etc.
>>
>> ***
>>
>> Thanks to this errant behavior (off the top of my head, I know of no
>> other GNU program that does this), I'm going to have a bit of manual
>> undo to do.  I can force the build to do what I want with:
>>
>> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local
>>
>> but dear me, I shouldn't have to.
>>
>> Could you please either document this behavior and change the output of
>> ./configure --help or remove the check completely?  It makes no sense
>> to change the default install location based on where gzip is found.
>
> Thanks for the report.
> That is indeed surprising, and IMHO undesirable.
> However, the logs suggest that gzip's installation process has been
> working that way (using AC_PREFIX_PROGRAM(gzip), now in configure.ac)
> for more than 10 years, so removing that "feature" would probably cause
> more harm than good.
>
> The only alternative I can imagine would be to make configure
> fail if --prefix=/something is not specified.  And I'm sure some
> would object to that, too.  So maybe the status quo is best.

On second thought (and upon a prod from Karl Berry, thanks ;-),
I've gone ahead and made the change after all.
The existing behavior is just too non-intuitive.

From 7ef3730c1f88b398d9633eed877a81d46bc5f16b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Jim Meyering <meyering@...>
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:21:21 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] build: do not use AC_PREFIX_PROGRAM

* configure.ac: Do not use "AC_PREFIX_PROGRAM(gzip)".
It would induce behavior that is so surprising that it is probably
universally considered to be buggy, these days.  Reported by Zube
in http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.gzip.bugs/273
---
 configure.ac |    2 --
 1 files changed, 0 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 174a59e..c568c02 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -109,7 +109,5 @@ AC_TYPE_SIGNAL
 AC_TYPE_SIZE_T
 AC_TYPE_OFF_T

-AC_PREFIX_PROGRAM(gzip)
-
 AC_CONFIG_FILES([Makefile doc/Makefile lib/Makefile])
 AC_OUTPUT
--
1.6.5.1.281.g7c7f7