Re: Install run-help and *.zwc files system wide in build system

[Martin Vaeth <vaeth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bart Schaefer <schaefer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> } since I was at it, I also added a _run-help completion file
> } to the patch.
>
> Why?  Does anybody ever actually type out "run-help" as a command and
> then attempt to complete after it?

After 'alias help="run-help"' (and using the preload run-help function
instead of the alias) you can use "help" as in bash:
I find it rather useful to get as completion all the zsh commands.

This is exactly the reminder which I expect from "help"
(you can use it for zsh commands even if you do not know
or do not remember the command you are looking for).
It also corresponds in a sense to what you get if you type
just "help" in bash.

> } generate the run-help files directly from yodl, but I am not (yet)
> } familiar enough with yodl to do this.
>
> Another suggestion (I've probably made this one before in past years)
> would be to do all of this in perl directly in Util/helpfiles, instead
> of needing other external processes piped into it.

This sounds rather cumbersome since it would mean that you need
parts of groff (line-wrapping and several special code) implemented
in perl.

> For tarball purposes, the symlinks could be followed when packing ... or
> we could actually use hard links, I'm not sure what benefit there is to
> using symlinks in this particular case.

At least, in the installation, it would be reasonable to keep symlinks
(if supported by the system): This saves space compared to copying, and,
in contrast to hardlinks, this information does not easily get lost
when making backups, binary packages, etc.
But perhaps one could just patch the perl file to produce a *list* of
symlinks instead which is then installed manually (depending on whether
symbolic links are supported).
When I find time (no promises yet), I will do this.