fsd### [at] uafedu wrote:
> So here's the deal:  From what I can tell, povray does not know that it
> has a default library path.  It loads it library path from the command
> line or from an ini file.  So, simply put, without knowing exactly where
> the ini file is, povray can't load the Library_Path to know where to
> look for the ini file.  Yes, the program could be modified to look in
> the .../share/ini directory for ini files until it successfully loads
> one, but it doesn't and the change would not be trivial.

What about having a .povrayrc file in your home directory? That's
where I have my Library_Path settings specified. I would have
thought that POV-Ray would process that file, then process the
command line, then process any ini files specified on the command
line. But maybe the order of processing is different. I do know
that POV-Ray processes the ~/.povrayrc file.

Here's a pertinent section of the README.unix file:

INI files:
    POV-Ray allows the use of files to store common configuration
    settings, such as the output format, image size, and library paths.
    Upon startup, the Unix version of POV-Ray will use the environment
    variable POVINI to determine custom configuration information if \
    that environment variable is set.  Otherwise, it will look for the
    file "povray.ini" in the current directory.  If neither of these works,
    then POV-Ray will try to read a file called ".povrayrc" stored
    in the user's home directory.  If none of these work, then POV-Ray will
    try to read the file "povray.ini" in a default system-wide directory
    defined at compile time (/usr/local/lib/povray35 by default).
    Each user should copy the system-wide "povray.ini" file to
    "$HOME/.povrayrc".

So POV-Ray could theoretically know the Library_Path prior to
looking for ini files specified on the command line. But I
have the impression that ini files were not meant to be located
that way and that the Library_Path is meant for scene file
includes and the like.

-Roz

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