Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!orca.wv.tek.com!quark!jeff
From: jeff@quark.WV.TEK.COM (Jeff Beadles;685-2568;;;quark)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: finding things in the source tree, a proposal
Message-ID: <7434@orca.wv.tek.com>
Date: 15 Jun 90 05:03:50 GMT
References: <2083@esquire.UUCP>
Sender: news@orca.wv.tek.com
Reply-To: jeff@orca.WV.TEK.COM (Jeff Beadles)
Organization: Little to none, expecially in daylight.
Lines: 50

yost@esquire.UUCP (David A. Yost) writes:
>Imagine this:

>Thinks to self: Hmm, where is the source to thingy?
>Types this:     cd /src/where/`which thingy`
>Et voila!

>Here's the idea:

>For each installed binary or other file which is
>built and installed from somewhere else (e.g.
>the src tree), there is a symbolic link at a
>corresponding path under the directory tree
>/src/where, and this symbolic link points to
>the directory where the source is found.
 
>Each source directory contains an install
>subdirectory, in which each file that is to
>be installed exists as a symbolic link to its
>installed location.  Thus, the install target
>in the Makefile copies to install/thingy, which
>automatically causes the install to the right
>place.
 
[ ... ]
 
At one time, I worked in a unix build environment where the entire
environment was set-up like a user's system.
 
For example, the top was "/ube/src" and if you wanted the source for
/bin/passwd, you looked in /ube/src/bin/passwd.
 
Libc was in /ube/src/lib/libc, etc...
 
It was VERY easy to find your way around, although it did have other problems.  
(Find /bin/ex, which is a link to /bin/vi, etc...  I know, there could have
been yet another sumbolic link.)
 
Also, this method assumes that all systems that use it have symbolic links.
How about (looking to make sure that nobody is watching :-) MSDOS, and other
operating systems that don't support soft links?
 
 
 
 
	-Jeff
 
Jeff Beadles				jeff@quark.WV.TEK.COM 
Utek Engineering, Tektronix Inc.	+1 503 685 2568
			SPEEA - Just say no.