Re: [PATCH 2/2] AC_SITE_LOAD: append '.exe' to ac_executable_extensions on OS/2

[Eric Blake]

On 05/28/2015 11:43 PM, KO Myung-Hun wrote:
> Codes searching for the executables uses '' and
> $ac_executable_extensions as extensions of the executables. But it is
> used without any initializing. That is, it is an empty string by
> default. As a result, without appending '.exe' to it on OS/2,
> searching for the executables fails on OS/2.
> 
> * lib/autoconf/general.m4 (AC_SITE_LOAD): Append '.exe' to
> ac_executable_extensions if it does not contain '.exe' on OS/2.

Weird. The code adding support for $ac_executable_extensions has been
present since 2001, but nothing has ever set it.  That pre-dates my
involvement with autoconf, so I'm not sure of the rationale.

There was definitely some work done for OS/2 at the time
(https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/autoconf-patches/2001-09/msg00134.html
for example), but I'm not finding good rationale for the patch as committed.

Oh, searching a bit further found this:

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/autoconf-patches/2001-06/msg00041.html

which mentions that ac_executable_extensions should be set by
config.site.  So again, I'm not sure you need this patch (which would
only help for packages that have been built with new autoconf) when you
can instead tweak your config.site (and work with all existing packages).

I will, however, accept a patch to the manual to document
ac_executable_extensions, and that it is the user's responsibility to
set it to a sane value in config.site if they are on a platform where
.exe (or .bat or ...) is required.

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake redhat com    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

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