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vimncursesconfigure

Installing Vim: What is the difference betwen "--with-local-dir" and "includedir"


My main goal is that I want to understand how parameters works in ./configure. So, I decided to install ncurses and vim in $HOME/local/, so, as to not affect my system.

while configuring vim, I looked into --with-local-dir and includedir. I want to know what is the difference between them.

When I looked into vim-git-INSTALL-script, it said:

Unix: LOCAL HEADERS AND LIBRARIES NOT IN /usr/local

Sometimes it is necessary to search different path than /usr/local for locally
installed headers (/usr/local/include) and libraries (/usr/local/lib).
To search /stranger/include and /stranger/lib for locally installed
headers and libraries, use:
    ./configure --with-local-dir=/stranger

I thought that was the purpose of includedir. I would appreciate if someone can tell me where I went wrong. Thank you!


Solution

  • Conventionally (and per documentation), includedir is used for the directory where the current program would install header files. That's not the same as the places where the configure script might have to tell the compiler to find the header files needed to compile the program.