Re: Relative path in game? SOLVED

[Gianfranco Berardi <gberardi@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ingo Ruhnke wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 13, 2006 at 08:25:17AM -0500, Gianfranco Berardi wrote:
>
> > I decided to look at the existing game installations I have.  It seems 
> > that Sam Lantinga has already solved this problem years ago with his 
> > FindPath() script:
> >
> > http://www.libsdl.org/pipermail/sdl/2001-March/034831.html
>
> I wouldn't call FindPath() a solution, its a workaround that can easily
> made to fail. When you for example extract a game to /opt/ and symlink the
> binary to /usr/bin/ FindPath() will give you /usr/bin/ instead of /opt/ as
> result. The correct way would be to read /proc/self/exe, binreloc from 
> autopackage encupsules that and a bunch of other detection magic:

Well, FindPath() seems better than assuming that your user is using 
Gnu/Linux or some OS with /proc, right?  It seems the most portable 
solution if your intention is to get binaries to other OS users is to 
use FindPath().  If you symlink to /usr/bin as you say, why not just 
change the name of the actual binary?  The link in /usr/bin can be 
game-name, and it can point to the FindPath() script, which can just be 
named runApp or something similar.  And it will just find the location 
of the binary, which is game-name.bin or some other name.  Wouldn't it 
work just fine then?  Obviously it is still a gotcha for someone who 
doesn't know better, but it should work on systems regardless if they 
use proc or not.

However, as I do more research, I see that the info out there is 
contradictory.  LSB wants one thing, the FHS says another.  The first 
seems specific to Linux-based systems, the second is generalized to 
Unix-like systems. Or maybe I've read them wrong?

And Frederic's link about using the FHS to hold the data in the correct 
locations assumes system-wide installation. I'm sure some players will 
simply extract the file to their /home directory to try it out or maybe 
they don't want to mess with using privileged permissions just to 
install a game.  If the binary assumes that the data will be in 
/usr/local/share, for instance, then it seems broken again if the data 
isn't installed there. And I'm definitely not going to see an easier 
time of testing if I need to put the data in the correct directories 
before I can use them.

I have more information, but somehow I am more confused.  B-)

I imagine I could do worse than to follow the example of existing games, 
though.  I just did a "find ./ -name darwinia" from /, and it returned:


./usr/lib/menu/darwinia
./usr/local/bin/darwinia
./usr/local/games/darwinia-demo/darwinia
./usr/local/games/darwinia
./usr/local/games/darwinia/darwinia

I also have .darwinia in my home directory.

When I do
$ ls -al /usr/local/bin/darwinia
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root staff 34 2005-05-13 23:42 /usr/local/bin/darwinia -> 
/usr/local/games/darwinia/darwinia*

I find that /usr/local/games/darwinia/darwinia uses FindPath, then runs 
$here/lib/darwinia.bin.x86

There doesn't seem to be one definitive way of solving this problem, so 
until there is, FindPath() seems good enough.

--
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