37.4 Creating Packages
Internally a package is simply a gzipped tar file that contains a
top level directory of any given name. This directory will in the
following be referred to as package
and may contain the
following files:
package/COPYING
- This is a required file containing the license of the package. No
restrictions is made on the license in general. If however the
package contains dynamically linked functions the license must be
compatible with the GNU General Public License.
package/DESCRIPTION
- This is a required file containing information about the package.
See The DESCRIPTION File, for details on this file.
package/ChangeLog
- This is an optional file describing all the changes made to the
package source files.
package/INDEX
- This is an optional file describing the functions provided by the
package. If this file is not given then one with be created
automatically from the functions in the package and the
Categories
keyword in the DESCRIPTION file.
See The INDEX File, for details on this file.
package/NEWS
- This is an optional file describing all user-visible changes worth
mentioning. As this file increases on size, old entries can be moved
into package/ONEWS.
package/ONEWS
- This is an optional file describing old entries from the NEWS file.
package/PKG_ADD
- An optional file that includes commands that are run when the package
is added to the users path. Note that
PKG_ADD
directives in the
source code of the package will also be added to this file by the
Octave package manager. Note that symbolic links are to be avoided in
packages, as symbolic links do not exist on some file systems, and so
a typical use for this file is the replacement of the symbolic link
ln -s foo.oct bar.oct
with an autoload directive like
autoload ('bar', which ('foo'));
See PKG_ADD and PKG_DEL Directives, for details on PKG_ADD
directives.
package/PKG_DEL
- An optional file that includes commands that are run when the package
is removed from the users path. Note that
PKG_DEL
directives in
the source code of the package will also be added to this file by the
Octave package manager.
See PKG_ADD and PKG_DEL Directives, for details on PKG_DEL
directives.
package/pre_install.m
- This is an optional script that is run prior to the installation of a
package.
package/post_install.m
- This is an optional script that is run after the installation of a
package.
package/on_uninstall.m
- This is an optional script that is run prior to the removal of a
package.
Besides the above mentioned files, a package can also contain on or
more of the following directories:
package/inst
- An optional directory containing any files that are directly installed
by the package. Typically this will include any
m
-files.
package/src
- An optional directory containing code that must be built prior to the
packages installation. The Octave package manager will execute
./configure in this directory if this script exists, and will
then call
make
if a file Makefile exists in this
directory. make install
will however not be called. The
environment variables MKOCTFILE, OCTAVE_CONFIG, and
OCTAVE will be set to the full paths of the programs
mkoctfile
, octave-config
, and octave
, respectively,
of the correct version when configure
and make
are
called. If a file called FILES
exists all files listed there
will be copied to the inst
directory, so they also will be
installed. If the FILES
file doesn't exist, src/*.m and
src/*.oct will be copied to the inst
directory.
package/doc
- An optional directory containing documentation for the package. The
files in this directory will be directly installed in a sub-directory
of the installed package for future reference.
package/bin
- An optional directory containing files that will be added to the
Octave EXEC_PATH when the package is loaded. This might contain
external scripts, etc., called by functions within the package.