Re: Adding to the end of the load path

[ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)]

Hi Andreas,

Andreas Rottmann <a.rottmann@gmx.at> skribis:

> ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

[...]

>> I pretty much like Mark’s suggestion of using ‘...’ as a special marker,
>> even though that’s a valid file name.
>>
> Well, there's a workaround -- specifying "./..." as an "escape sequence"
> for "..." if you really need to have a three-dot relative directory in
> the path.

Right.  In general, it’s a bad idea to use relative file names in such
variables anyway.

>> How would that work for you?
>>
> I would like the approach using separate _SUFFIX variables better, as it
> doesn't have this special case.

OK.  I dislike the proliferation of environment variables, but yeah, it
might somewhat less ugly than ‘...’.

> - Add the _SUFFIX environment variables, making it clear in the docs
>   that they are supported only from Guile 2.0.7 onward.
>
> - Additonally, add "..." as a special marker, but mention it is just
>   provided to support Guile < 2.0.7, and should not be used in code that
>   needs to depend on Guile 2.0.7 or newer for other reasons
>   (e.g. reliance on another added feature or significant bugfix).

Blech, that second part is terrrible.

Mark is right that ‘...’ is the only workable solution, in terms of
compatibility.  So we need that one.

A potential problem is that in .bashrc, shell scripts, etc., it’s going
to be hard to make sure that ‘...’ remains first, when that’s what you
want, because you’ll inevitable find legacy code that does things like:

  export GUILE_LOAD_PATH="$HOME/soft/share/guile/site/2.0${GUILE_LOAD_PATH:+:}$GUILE_LOAD_PATH"

thereby moving ‘...’ further away.

Pfff, this is really terrible.

Mark: WDYT?

Ludo’.