PEAR 2.0 question

Hi, One of the questions I have about PEAR 2.0 has to do with file roles. I don't have any answers, but I wonder if there are ideas on these issues. Basically, the biggest difference between PEAR and other systems out there is that when you install a package by downloading and unzipping, all the files are in 1 place. With PEAR, they're scattered into different directories based on file role. I wonder if there is a way to make it easier to find these files, especially on shared hosts. In other words, it's easy to find DB.php, you just "require_once 'DB.php';", but finding the tests is harder. you first have to $ pear config-show tests_dir and then look there - assuming that tests_dir wasn't changed between $ pear install DB and now. The only other way to do this is to use replacements, so the installer configures this information at install-time. I wonder if there are ideas on how to make it easier to find all parts of a package that don't add too much WTF factor? One thought would be a per-package solution that doesn't require any changes to the installer at all, a configuration "snapshot" file that would be installed in a fixed place, and simply be created at package-time: <file role="php" name="channelname_PackageName_config.php"> <replace from="@DATA-DIR@" to="data_dir" type="pear-config"/> <replace from="@TESTS-DIR@" to="tests_dir" type="pear-config"/> <replace from="@DOC-DIR@" to="doc_dir" type="pear-config"/> <replace from="@PACKAGE-NAME@" to="name" type="package-info"/> </file> PackageName_config.php: <?php if ('@DATA-DIR@' == '@' . 'DATA-DIR@') {

    // locations for non-PEAR install
    $data_dir = dirname(__FILE__) . '/data';
    $tests_dir = dirname(__FILE__) . '/tests';
    $doc_dir = dirname(__FILE__) . '/docs';

} else {

    // locations for PEAR install - if you see bunches of @,
    // use the locations above
    $data_dir = '@DATA-DIR@/@PACKAGE-NAME@/data';
    $tests_dir = '@TESTS-DIR@/@PACKAGE-NAME@/tests';
    $doc_dir = '@DOC-DIR@/@PACKAGE-NAME@/docs';

} ?> Or, we could recommend that people include this config file directly. This would allow packages that use replacements for path purposes to function without the installer too - a nice side effect. Basically, the thinking here is that although the data_dir can be found using config-get, it can also be changed, and once it is changed, the only other way to find data files is to list the files that were installed. With the config.php file idea, there is a record stamped in stone and easily found, too, since it can be parsed by humans as well as programs. The channelname_PackageName_config files would have to be installed in the baseinstalldir for this idea to work with non-PEAR installs. Greg