Re: PEAR / include path

[This followup was posted to php.pear.general and a copy was sent to the cited author.] In article <Pine.LNX.4.44.0210050954280.9111-100000@stampy.hauschen>, busterb@mail.utexas.edu says... > PEAR is designed to be integrated into PHP. As such, it must be easily > installed as a set of system-wide libraries, with no internal dependencies > on anything being installed at an absolute location. This same design > allows you to simply code: > > include 'PEAR.php'; OK, that was clear to me. The problem is, you do it in a way, that there cannot be another system-wide library beside PEAR. The names of the files in the main directory are so simple, that it is to be expected that they might clash with other system-wide libraries. Since it is to be expected, that PEAR is still growing and that other new files will appear in the PEAR-directory, how will I know, that only updating PHP/PEAR w'ont crash my system, which depends on other system-wide libraries too. You cannot expect other developers of system-wide libraries to behave more co-operative, if the developers of the most important PHP-library don't do it. include 'PEAR/PEAR.php'; would not be much more complicated, but solve most of the problem. > and have it work, no matter where PEAR is actually installed, or where > your code is installed relative to PEAR. The magic that makes this work is > that when PEAR is installed, its location should be automatically added to > the include_path in php.ini. This would also be no Problem with my suggestion. > Your choices for getting PEAR to work are hence: > > 1). use ini_set('include_path','.:path/to/my/pear/files') before including > any pear libraries. > > 2). do the same thing with a directory-wide .htaccess file. Just create a > file called .htaccess in the directory where your .php files are with the > line: > > php_value include_path ".:/path/to/your/pear/files" Why should I tie my hands if not necessary. If PEAR should be a system- wide library, you should not even think, to make such suggestions. > This method is nice if you don't want to change any of your php code, but > still help it to find your local installation of pear. No. This is a very ugly hack and it does not help at all. If I use 2 files with two different library-files to be included, but which share the same filename, I have to put them in seperate directories. In general I use directories for grouping my files and not to fix problems in a system-wide library. > 3). install PEAR globally. You need to either install php 4.3 cvs or run > http://pear.php.net/go-pear. It overwrites any old installation > of pear. > You would do well to verify that php.ini has pear's installation path in > its include_path. And here the cat bites its tail - PEAR is not designed to do this as I stated several times. > I hope this helps you understand what is going on, what needs to be done, > and why PEAR is designed in such a way. It is very clear to understand what's going on, but either you nor Pierre-Alain found a good reason to tell me, why PEAR is designed this way. As far as I can understand, you leave the problems you should solve as a library-developer to the user of your library. I am not surprised, that this issue rises up again and again, because the way you deal with the include-path is an error in your design or at least very short-sighted. Regards Thomas