MakeProjectCreator fails for projects based on "taoidldefaults"

[Aleksandar Radovic]

It appears that this is build and packaging issue inherited from Debian.

Package tao-idl puts binary tao_idl into /usr/lib/ace/TAO and then provides the script in /usr/bin/tao_idl with the following content:
---------------------------------------
#!/bin/sh

ACE_ROOT=/usr/lib/ace; export ACE_ROOT;
TAO_ROOT=$ACE_ROOT/TAO; export TAO_ROOT;

exec $TAO_ROOT/tao_idl "$@"
---------------------------------------

This should work. I am guessing that this specific Debian/Ubuntu tao_idl location was not specified during the ACE+TAO build, and MakeProjectCreator TAO infrastructure still expects to find tao_idl in its default location: ${ACE_ROOT}/bin/tao_idl. If I am not mistaken, this in file /usr/lib/ace/TAO/MPC/config/taobaseidldefaults.mpb, the following line is the root cause of my problem:
--------------------------------------------
    tao_idl = $(ACE_ROOT)/bin/tao_idl
--------------------------------------------

The resulting GNUmakefile tries to symlink /usr/lib/ace/bin/tao_idl and, of course, fails, as the correct location is /usr/lib/ace/TAO/tao_idl

I can not be sure what is the best way to fix this. If Debian/Ubuntu are insisting on keeping tao_idl in /usr/bin/ace/TAO, then a "proper" solution might be to use technique for cross-compilation of the ACE+TAO, where tai_idl is built first, placed into the desired spot, and then in second iteration that location is passed to ACE+TAO build, ensuring proper position of tao_idl.

The problem can be reproduced by attempting to compile any TAO example with the following line in its *.mpc :
----------------------
project(*idl): taoidldefaults {
----------------------

[Aleksandar Radovic (monte081)]

Workaround:
cd /usr/lib/ace/bin && sudo ln -s ../TAO/tao_idl tao_idl