[GNC] Uninstall Question

[Geert Janssens]

Op woensdag 30 december 2020 22:38:24 CET schreef Mike Commissaris:
> A lot of searching has not provided an answer for me.
> So, I have several cmake built versions :  4.1, 4.2, 4.3, and current 4.4.
> Each new build is in it's own build directory but somehow inherits most of
> my preferences. So my concern is that performing a "make uninstall" on a
> couple older versions will remove whatever file, if not the data file, is
> responsible for holding preferences.
> 
> Looking a little knowledge before I mess up my Gnc.
> 
> Thank you

Don't worry. The preferences are not stored at the same location as gnucash is 
installed. And more even the build system has no features to remove your 
preferences. So in the context of preserving your preferences (and your data 
file for that matter) you can safely run make uninstall on older versions.

On the other hand you don't specify whether you have also set different 
installation paths for each build. You only speak of build directories.

If you never explicitly told cmake to *install* each version in its own 
directory each call to "make install" would write to the same directory, 
regardless of whether you have set up separate build directories. The default 
on linux is to install in /usr/local. That would also mean that running "make 
uninstall" in any of these directories would just uninstall the very latest 
you have ever installed (plus or minus some files that may have been added or 
removed in different gnucash versions).

The installation path (or prefix) is set as an option on the cmake invocation. 
It's of the form
-D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<some directory>

Did you use that option to set unique install directories when running cmake 
for each build ?

Regards,

Geert