Re: [PATCH 0/2] Improve search path handling?

[David Thompson <dthompson2@worcester.edu>]

David Thompson <dthompson2@worcester.edu> writes:

> While hacking on Ruby stuff, I noticed that executable files in Ruby
> gems aren't installed in 'bin', but rather 'lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/bin'.
> In order to make these executables "just work", I decided to add a
> search path specification for $PATH to the ruby package.  That's when I
> noticed an issue: 'guix package --search-paths' would have me clobber
> the $PATH I had already configured to use my profile.
>
>     export PATH="/home/dave/.guix-profile/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/bin"
>
> To solve this, two things need to happen: A default $PATH with 'bin' and
> 'sbin' needs to be included, and search path specifications that have
> the same variable name need to be merged.
>
> The merge is necessary to avoid a situation like this:
>
>     export PATH="/home/dave/.guix-profile/bin:/home/dave/.guix-profile/sbin"
>     export PATH="/home/dave/.guix-profile/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/bin"
>
> I also tweaked 'guix environment' to use the base search paths, which it
> was already doing, but via a hardcoded search path specification.
>
> Or maybe this is all silly and I'm doing it wrong!  You decide!

Found one big issue with adding a $PATH search path specification to a
package: It messes up the 'set-paths' phase of 'gnu-build-system'.
$PATH ends up being unset!

    environment variable `PATH' set to `/gnu/store/dwjlh4id7ksdjiigfddw5dq617bajxxm-ruby-2.2.0/bin:/gnu/store/cdgpj8djhvfwsysa0bklx7l17bkjgnr6-git-2.2.1/bin:/gnu/store/paknwghpb3530zpw6kjzygcwyi4v2b7a-tar-1.28/bin:/gnu/store/gzfwcp3rx6vx9yhfn258pqravsihkhgk-gzip-1.6/bin:/gnu/store/v47nyd4lmk6079lahhn7qjg1x30sq6r0-bzip2-1.0.6/bin:/gnu/store/45cspsg2pi0d9n1x62r85iaf6118scnr-xz-5.0.4/bin:/gnu/store/b1hflfspi7d8y8d6xxsm1hpmh1s6aki9-file-5.22/bin:/gnu/store/5x6ypvynrc4y3dnynqj948c6xdhpagv8-diffutils-3.3/bin:/gnu/store/q1fk0vrzdz7vzawq32k2slpgxhrlq0b3-patch-2.7.1/bin:/gnu/store/b1msmz538khma08mg8dm6lw0vkjilbjd-sed-4.2.2/bin:/gnu/store/izbkwxcgikxlinj78lh1934f39n98mn2-findutils-4.4.2/bin:/gnu/store/jyib7byzyincn3q7mkkrm9q5wfbg105z-gawk-4.1.1/bin:/gnu/store/s7jlv9f6v23h17bnkbvcvqk1qnhg40pb-grep-2.21/bin:/gnu/store/vgjlzkg84jpzvz227ac5aygqx25bb6wh-coreutils-8.23/bin:/gnu/store/dvlp6nk7avz403585k9xndl6zqy6vwmj-make-4.1/bin:/gnu/store/nx4zd42igyb7ghmv4mxv6ncg8wr7ypa1-bash-4.3.33/bin:/gnu/store/4x401cpj6nmddji54l99cl89ggn5pgib-ld-wrapper-0/bin:/gnu/store/h7lqkyf4sc37lkbmnph9kmmsfqr3xk5n-binutils-2.25/bin:/gnu/store/16j0v2km34g471cs77gxlq0n0a956cw1-gcc-4.8.4/bin:/gnu/store/q2mm1wv4a3g0b29yv0rjybfjh8kr07qi-glibc-2.20/bin:/gnu/store/q2mm1wv4a3g0b29yv0rjybfjh8kr07qi-glibc-2.20/sbin'
    environment variable `PATH' unset

I think this can be remedied with a bit more work.

-- 
David Thompson
Web Developer - Free Software Foundation - http://fsf.org
GPG Key: 0FF1D807
Support the FSF: https://fsf.org/donate