Re: Location of "file" is hard coded

[Eric Blake]

On 09/02/2015 02:06 AM, John Frankish wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm not sure if this is the correct place to report this, but the configure
> scripts produced by autoconf/automake assume "file" is located at
> /usr/bin/file and report it missing otherwise.

Running this command in both autoconf.git and automake.git produces no hits:

git grep bin/file

so I'm failing to see where you are finding a hard-coded invocation.

Which package are you trying to compile? Can you provide more details
about the exact error message you are seeing?  Is it happening during
./configure (likely a bug in your package's configure.ac) or during make
(likely a bug in your package's Makefile.am)?

> 
> I have file at /usr/local/bin/file - shouldn't the configure script search
> $PATH to find "file"?

It's probably something that needs to be fixed in the particular package
you are trying to compile, as I can't find where autoconf or automake
hardcodes such a use.  In fact GNU Coding Standards do not include
'file' in the list of ubiquitous programs, so it is unlikely that
autoconf or automake would blindly use it (conditional use, after first
probing that it exists on PATH, and with a sane fallback when it does
not exist, is okay).

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

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