Re: [GNU Autoconf 2.60] testsuite: 3 120 failed

[Stepan Kasal]

Hello,

On Wed, Oct 11, 2006 at 02:52:13PM -0700, Paul Eggert wrote:
> OK, but we should still have a macro that expands to plain "test -x",
> since sometimes it is useful to test whether the installer has the
> x permission on a file or directory or whatever.
> 
> I installed this patch instead; it preserves the semantics of
> AS_EXECUTABLE_P and adds a new macro AS_TEST_X that behaves like "test -x".

first, let me say that I really enjoyed studying your code!

But IMHO there was no problem with the previous state:

1) Eliminating `test -f' in _AC_LINK_IFELSE is just a minor
optimization.

2) On ancient systems, the old `test -f' was ``good enough''
approximation, at least for all AS_EXECUTABLE_P calls within
autoconf itself:
- in AC_CHECK_PROG and friends, if a file sits in a directory which
  is in $PATH, than it is probably executable.
- in _AC_LINK_IFELSE, I guess we can just suppose that the linked
  output is executable.

So I would say that the benefits of your patch are not worth the
added complexity.  But I'm not a maintainer of Autoconf.
And I do not want to waste your time discussing this, it's not a big
deal either way...

Have a nice day,
        Stepan Kasal