Configure documentation inconsistent with behavior for --prefix?

[lydia-duncan]

I've been trying to use configure when setting up distribution of a Chapel library compiled into a Python package. In the documentation for configure, it says:

--prefix=/dir/for/install/ causes the Chapel compiler, libraries, and supporting code to be installed into the directories:

`/dir/for/install/bin`

`/dir/for/install/lib`

`/dir/for/install/share`

This technique is designed to install Chapel using a standard directory structure for the purposes of integrating it into a standard location that is already in your path, such as /usr/local/ or ~/.

To me, this indicated that ~/ was a valid value to use. But if I use ./configure --prefix=~/, then I get the following message:

error: expected an absolute directory name for --prefix: ~/

Was that an incorrect expectation to have? Is this a bug? Or is this a sign we should adjust our documentation to not imply that?

[jabraham17]

This is possibly a bug introduced by #23576, where it looks like the code that explicitly handled ~/ was removed?

[lydia-duncan]

Hmm, following that trail, it might even be intentional: #23271 (comment)

[jabraham17]

I guess that makes it clear we should address this by fixing the docs, not changing configure

[mppf]

From #23271 (comment)

Ah, yes, ./configure --prefix ~/tmp/foo does expand it, because the shell handles it on the way in to configure. Presumably something about ./configure --prefix=~/tmp/foo leads the shell not to expand it.

So, the documentation could suggest ./configure --prefix ~/.

(BTW, I would myself not use ~/ as a prefix; instead I would use something like ~/sw; but this is a matter of personal preference).

[lydia-duncan]

I was not having luck with --prefix ~/ (it gave me help output, oddly enough), so I think I'll just remove the mention of ~ and leave it at that

[lydia-duncan]

PR is here, if I could get a review for it :)