User Customisation
------------------

Author: Gabrielle Allen
Date:   September 2001


Why
---

There are a lot of different options for checking out, configuring and
compiling Cactus, and a user should be able to set her own defaults for 
these on different machines.


WARNING
-------

The implementation of this may take a few iterations to get right, so 
expect minor changes!


Customisation Files
-------------------

The users files for customisation will be held in a directory called .cactus

This directory will be searched for in the following locations, and the
first one found will be used:

1) In the directory pointed to by the environment variable 
   $CACTUSRC_DIR

2) In the home directory pointed to by the environment variable
   $HOME

The files which may be placed in the .cactus directory are:

ThornList: (DONE)

  The user's master thornlist containing a list of all the thorns
  she has access to and directives for their CVS locations. (Note: 
  maybe the directives should be extended so that instead of 
  checking out thorns from a CVS repository they can be copied from 
  a local source repository.)

config: (DONE)

  Options which are used at configuration time during a Cactus build. 
  Options can all be set on the command line, and in a configuration file.  
  The order of precedence is

  1) Command line

  2) Configuration file specified on the command line

  3) Default config file

compile:

  Options to be used at compile time during a Cactus build. The order
  of precedence here is

  1) Command line
  
  2) Default compile file

runtime:

  Options to be used at runtime. The order of precedence here is

  1) Command line

  2) Default runtime file


Extensions
----------

 * Options for running testsuite ?

 * Options for GetCactus script ?

 * Default thorns to add to compilation ?

 * Default parameters to use ?

 
Questions
---------

How to put the information in the config-info file