[petsc-dev] Should everything in include be a symbolic link in the git repository?

[Barry Smith]

  The include directory is special because it contains source code from all components of PETSc but artificially collected together in a single directory tree because the C/C++/Fortran compilers like it this way to not require hundreds of -I and for distribution without the source.

  Should the PETSc git repository be reorganized where the include files in the include directory tree are actually in the appropriate subdirectories of src/ and symbolic links are used in the include directory tree to point to their locations in  src/ ?

  In the tarball the include files would be actually in the include directory when the tarball is generated.

  --with-prefix installs will, of course, copy the include files over so having them in src does not matter.

  Does git handle symbolic links nice enough to support this.

  The reason to make the change is as we move away from having makefiles in all the directories with lists of files we need to know the "home component" of all the files in the include tree and the natural way to know the home is to have the true files in the appropriate src subdirectory.

  Barry