bash completion doesn't obey configure --prefix about tarsnap HOT 3 CLOSED

Huh. Bash doesn't look at any user-writeable bash-completion directories by default (at least, not on Ubuntu). Somebody could add their own custom user-writeable directory by copying a bunch of scripts around, but it's not trivial.

I've revised the configure script so it prints the directory during the configure process, which is a small step forward. Right now I see two options:

1. assume that most people will be installing tarsnap with sudo. If somebody chooses to install with both --prefix= and --with-bash-completion-dir, we assume that they'll understand why make install fails.

2. do some autoconf magic to check one or more of the following:

• if $BASH_COMPLETION_DIR is in the same directory structure as ${prefix}, and give an error if it isn't. (assuming that the user can install to the same place as prefix)
• if $BASH_COMPLETION_DIR has the same permissions as ${prefix}

I get the feeling that 2) is me inventing horrible solutions to a problem that doesn't exist (/ isn't serious), though. I mean, if I were in python, I'd totally whip up something that does those checks in 10 minutes. But trying to do such things in autoconf sounds like a recipe for masochism.

from tarsnap.

This is turned off by default, right? In that case I'm not too worried... people who turn it should understand what's going on. It may get turned on in packaging systems but the maintainers of those should figure out where to put the files.

from tarsnap.

Yes, --with-bash-completion-dir is disabled by default. And this is no problem for package maintainers, since packages will be installed as root. (or maybe as fake-root into a chroot, but that's also no problem in terms of writing to /usr/share/bash-completions/ )

from tarsnap.