Makefile: Use install command to install

[JohnAZoidberg]

It creates the parent directories of the target if they are not there.

This is especially useful if you want to install it into a non-standard location.

[0mp]

-t is not a standard option of install. It will probably cause trouble for users and package maintainers.

[JohnAZoidberg]

Oh, you're right. It seems to be a GNU extension.
I'm not sure I understand the manual correctly. It works on GNU, would that do it?

	install -m755 mtm -D $(DESTDIR)/bin/mtm
	install -m644 mtm.1 -D $(MANDIR)/mtm.1

[0mp]

I believe that GNU install's -D is not portable. See GNU install and FreeBSD install manuals, for example.

[JohnAZoidberg]

Hmm. It seems like install isn't more helpful in this use-case than mkdir -p and cp, right?

[0mp]

I think that I'd go for mkdir -p and install -m XXX. That seems to be fairly standard across different operating systems.

To be extra careful maybe we could go for mkdir, cp and chmod but I am not sure if that's smart.

Cheers!

[HalosGhost]

Note that mkdir -p is actually also non-portable. It is not uncommon for makefiles attempting to be maximally portable to define MKDIR ?= mkdir -p and leverage $(MKDIR) throughout the script (so that if -p is not possible / would cause problems, the user can declare the use of a different program or script that will handle it properly).

[JohnAZoidberg]

Which systems do not support mkdir -p?
Since it's part of the POSIX standard I think it's safe to use.

[HalosGhost]

@JohnAZoidberg, for reference: https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Utilities-in-Makefiles.html

Though -p is specified by POSIX, it is underspecified in certain cases which can cause portability issues. It's a minor thing though; and can be easily changed should anyone actually run into it as a problem.

[HalosGhost]

Just to clarify, I do not think you should worry about providing an alternative to mkdir -p yourself in this PR. Instead, if no one objects, I think it would be ideal to define MKDIR ?= mkdir -p so that people can override it if they need to for their platform, and then use $(MKDIR) instead of mkdir -p throughout the script.

That lets the portability question be dealt with by users of platforms affected, but still empowers them to overcome the issue with minimal extra effort.