bug#21400: Location of "file" is hard coded

[John Frankish]

Hi,

I see an error that /usr/bin/file cannot be found when running the configure
script in many packages - in my distro "file" is at /usr/local/bin/file.

As an example, using NetworkManager-1.0.4, gives:

./configure
...
checking for archiver @FILE support... @
checking for strip... strip [which is in /usr/local/bin]
checking for ranlib... ranlib [which is in /usr/local/bin]
checking command to parse /usr/local/bin/nm -B output from gcc object... ok
checking for sysroot... no
./configure: ./configure.lineno: line 1: /usr/bin/file: not found [but it is
in /usr/local/bin]
checking for mt... no
checking if : is a manifest tool... no
checking for dlfcn.h... yes

I'm told this is due to the location of "file" being hard coded in
NetworkManager-1.0.4/m4/libtool.m4

Would it be possible to look for "file" in $PATH instead?

Regards
John