Subject: Re: "make install-info" with DESTDIR writes unwanted usr/share/info/dir.gz

From: Jonathan Nieder <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2011 01:27:14 -0500

Stefano Lattarini wrote:
> On Monday 17 October 2011, Jonathan Nieder wrote:

>> +++ b/ChangeLog
>> @@ -1,3 +1,16 @@
>> +2011-10-17  Jonathan Nieder  <[email-masked]>
>> +
>> +	For Debian Bug#543992:
>> +	* lib/am/texinfos.am (install-info-am): When deciding whether to
>> +	add to an info/dir file, instead of checking for Debian
>> +	install-info, check if DESTDIR is nonempty.
[...]
> I must say that I don't like this very much.  A better fix IMHO would
> be to have an environment variable to inhibit the creation/updating of
> the `${infodir}/dir' file

Yes, that sounds sensible.  It would be better than checking for
Debian install-info (because that was insane) and better than the
current state (because it gives packagers on all distros an easy way
to request inhibiting creation of the ${infodir}/dir file).

Keying behavior on $(DESTDIR) left an unpleasant taste in my mouth,
too.  Thanks for your thoughtfulness.