cross toolchain vs. info files

[Doug Evans <dje at transmeta dot com>]

Dave Korn writes:
 > 
 >     Afternoon all!
 > 
 >   When we build and install a cross binutils, $prefix/man gets a whole load of
 > man pages all prefixed with the target - i.e.
 > $prefix/man/man1/$target-{ar,as,ld,...}.

I wonder if it's the $target- prefix that's the bug.

 >   OTOH, the info files installed to $prefix/info aren't prefixed with the
 > target.
 > 
 >   This means that 1) you can't look them up by "info $target-$utilityname" (it
 > brings you the related manpage instead)

... but if one has 5 targets why replicate the same document 5 times?

It's been awhile, but I don't recall any target-specific elements
in any particular man page or info doc.   [And for completeness' sake, the docs
can have target-specific documentation, obviously, what I'm refering to is,
of course, whether the docs get something extra or different iff that particular
target is configured.]

One could use hard links, I guess, if one is careful.  [And, for completeness'
sake, I'm obviously setting aside hosts that don't have hard links.]

 > and 2) they may override (or be
 > overridden by) the info files for your main system tools, which can be a bit
 > of a snag if they are built from different binutils versions.

Question: Does binutils install any target-independent tools?  gprof?
[it's been awhile, I forget.]
I wonder if this is no different than downloading gcc 4.x and configuring it with
--prefix=/usr and installing it on a linux distribution, for example,
that ships with 3.x.  If you don't want to clobber your main system tools,
don't configure with, for example, --prefix=/usr. [Assuming, of course, that
there is, or may at some future time be, target-independent tools in the release -
One can define the problem away, by requiring every binary to have the $target-
prefix, but I'm not sure the cure is better than the disease here.]

 >   Does anyone know why this is?  Is there some problem that I can't see?
 > Would it be possible to get "make install" to prepend the target prefix while
 > it's copying the files across?  Would that be all that was needed?

On a related subject, target libraries and includes go in $exec_prefix/$target.
I'm curious if there's any plan to change that to $prefix/$target?
[I can't recall why $exec_prefix/$target was chosen (way back when).
Anyone remember?  Maybe I'm overlooking something.]
[linux hosted target libraries/includes shouldn't be any different than cygwin hosted
target libraries/includes, for example]