Subject: Re: m4 port: return program name as 'm4' not '/some/path/m4.exe'
	[PATCH]
From: Tim Van Holder <tim DOT van DOT holder AT pandora DOT be>
To: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
In-Reply-To: <3E1D3BDE.C5BDCF79@phekda.freeserve.co.uk>
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	 <3E1D3BDE DOT C5BDCF79 AT phekda DOT freeserve DOT co DOT uk>
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Date: 09 Jan 2003 12:57:20 +0100
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On Thu, 2003-01-09 at 10:07, Richard Dawe wrote:
> Hello.

> test -x doesn't seem to find directories on my RedHat 6.2 box: first check
> whether it finds a directory off one of the directories in $PATH; then check
> whether it finds a directory called 'bin' in the path (of which there are
> several):
> 
> iolanthe:~ =] ls -ld ~/bin/get-cvs
> drwxrwxr-x    3 rich     rich         4096 Dec 31 00:10
> /home/rich/bin/get-cvs/
> iolanthe:~ =] echo $PATH
> /usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/home/rich/bin
> iolanthe:~ =] test -x get-cvs && echo 'test -x finds a directory! Abandon
> ship!'
> iolanthe:~ =] cd src/
> iolanthe:~/src =] ls -ld bin
> ls: bin: No such file or directory
> iolanthe:~/src =] test -x bin && echo 'test -x finds a directory! Uh-oh!'
> iolanthe:~ =] rpm -q sh-utils
> sh-utils-2.0-5

Ho hum - I was talking in the context of a path search (I highly doubt
running 'test -x' will _ever_ do a path search by itself; 'test -x rm'
won't return true unless you're in /bin or /usr/bin or whatever).

In the case of using

  test -x /usr/local/bin/m4

however, test -x WILL return true if /usr/local/bin/m4 refers to a
directory (that the current user can cd into). You'd need 'test -f foo
&& test -x foo' for a more foolproof test.

And that is what happened in autoconf's AC_PROG_PATH if 'test -x' was
used as executable test instead of 'test -f'

> Bye, Rich =]
-- 
Tim Van Holder <tim DOT van DOT holder AT pandora DOT be>