Common prefix (simulated root) and "well-known directory" location logic. Provides paths.h on platforms that never heard of it. Most of the logic is outlined in the comments and macro definitions within the include file itself.
The standard _PATH_* macros, usually implemented as string literals, resolve instead as calls to libprefix public API.
The most common case is as follows: wherever the main application is installed, libprefix itself is expected to be found
under the system root, typically in "bin" or a subfolder of "bin" (the exact name is softcoded and configurable). If that's
the case, the base path of "bin" (the parent of its outermost path component) becomes the detected simroot.
Fallbacks and overrides are possible; particularly, application configuration directories ("etc") receive special handling, as application configuration is more likely to diverge between users (and needs to be easier to edit) than executable code.
TODO write up a TL;DR
No Unicode support. Paths are ASCII. Related:
Context:
- https://github.com/treeswift/toybox-mingw
- https://github.com/armdevvel/openssh-portable
Relationship with libmoregw
While functionally being an essential path of the libmoregw meta-package, libprefix aims at being disconnected from its
dependency graph. Particularly, its lower-level components should resist the temptation to use paths.h and generally stay
file system layout agnostic, while libprefix itself should resist the temptation to expose API that's usable to such path
agnostic components. Distro-wide infrastructure (such as an implementation of procfs or a port of dbus) should probably
comprise another meta-package, most naturally called libdistro; in this case, libprefix becomes the perfect section to
separate libmoregw (libc-like API provider) from libdistro (provider of facilities not encapsulated naturally in libc).
libprefix is released into the public domain with a no-strings-attached Unlicense license.