src_install

Function	`src_install`
Purpose	Install a package to `${D}`
Sandbox	Enabled
Privilege	root
Called for	ebuild

Default `src_install`

For EAPIs 4 and later, the default src_install function is the following:

src_install() {
	if [[ -f Makefile ]] || [[ -f GNUmakefile ]] || [[ -f makefile ]] ; then
		emake DESTDIR="${D}" install
	fi

	if ! declare -p DOCS >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then
		local d
		for d in README* ChangeLog AUTHORS NEWS TODO CHANGES THANKS BUGS \
				FAQ CREDITS CHANGELOG ; do
			[[ -s "${d}" ]] && dodoc "${d}"
		done
	elif [[ $(declare -p DOCS) == "declare -a"* ]] ; then
		dodoc "${DOCS[@]}"
	else
		dodoc ${DOCS}
	fi
}

For EAPIs 6 and later, the default src_install function is the following:

src_install() {
	if [[ -f Makefile ]] || [[ -f GNUmakefile ]] || [[ -f makefile ]] ; then
		emake DESTDIR="${D}" install
	fi
	einstalldocs
}

Sample `src_install`

src_install() {
	emake DESTDIR="${D}" install
	dodoc README CHANGES
}

Easy installs

Often, especially with autotools-powered packages, there is a Makefile install target which will honour the DESTDIR variable to tell it to install to a non-root location. If possible, this should be used:

	emake DESTDIR="${D}" install

Note: emake should be used to parallelise here. Some installs are not designed to be parallelised, use emake -j1 or make if you hit an error.

Usually the package's build system will not install the README, ChangeLog, etc. files, so it is necessary to include additional dodoc statements for them:

	emake DESTDIR="${D}" install
	dodoc README CHANGES
	dodoc -r doc

dodoc supports -r as the first argument, which allows directories to be installed recursively.

Note: There is no need for dodoc COPYING! The license belongs in the repository's licenses/ directory. Sometimes though, you might want to install COPYING regardless, if it explains how different licenses are applied to different parts of the application, for example.

Trivial installs

For some packages with no Makefile that only install a small number of files, writing a manual install using cp is the easiest option. For example, to do a simple install of some (no compilation required) themes:

	dodir /usr/share/foo-styles/
	cp -R "${S}/" "${D}/" || die "Install failed!"

Or sometimes a combination of insinto and doins (plus related functions — see Install functions reference) — the following is based upon the sys-fs/udev install:

src_install() {
	dobin udevinfo
	dobin udevtest
	into /
	dosbin udev
	dosbin udevd
	dosbin udevsend
	dosbin udevstart
	dosbin extras/scsi_id/scsi_id
	dosbin extras/volume_id/udev_volume_id

	exeinto /etc/udev/scripts
	doexe extras/ide-devfs.sh
	doexe extras/scsi-devfs.sh
	doexe extras/cdsymlinks.sh
	doexe extras/dvb.sh

	insinto /etc/udev
	newins "${FILESDIR}/udev.conf.post_050" udev.conf
	doins extras/cdsymlinks.conf

	# For devfs style layout
	insinto /etc/udev/rules.d/
	newins etc/udev/gentoo/udev.rules 50-udev.rules

	# scsi_id configuration
	insinto /etc
	doins extras/scsi_id/scsi_id.config

	# set up symlinks in /etc/hotplug.d/default
	dodir /etc/hotplug.d/default
	dosym ../../../sbin/udevsend /etc/hotplug.d/default/10-udev.hotplug

	# set up the /etc/dev.d directory tree
	dodir /etc/dev.d/default
	dodir /etc/dev.d/net
	exeinto /etc/dev.d/net
	doexe etc/dev.d/net/hotplug.dev

	doman *.8
	doman extras/scsi_id/scsi_id.8

	dodoc ChangeLog FAQ HOWTO-udev_for_dev README TODO
	dodoc docs/{overview,udev-OLS2003.pdf,udev_vs_devfs,RFC-dev.d,libsysfs.txt}
	dodoc docs/persistent_naming/* docs/writing_udev_rules/*

	newdoc extras/volume_id/README README_volume_id
}

This is, of course, considerably harder to handle than a simple Makefile driven install.

Other installs

Sometimes, there will be a Makefile that does not honour DESTDIR and a non-trivial number of files to install. In these situations, it is best to patch the Makefile and contact upstream explaining the situation to them.

`src_install` processes

The following subsections cover different topics which often occur when writing src_install functions.

Controllable compression