RE: Announcing Autoconf 2.49d

[Tim Van Holder]

> This is confusing...
> 
> According to my test --help...
> 
>   -f FILE     FILE exists and is a regular file
> 
> I don't see why '-f' should search for an executable... 
DJGPP's bash can have test -f find an executable simply because many Unixy
scripts (including autoconf's configure) use -f to find programs along the
path. Same goes for Cygwin, i think. My position is that it's the scripts
that are broken, and we shouldn't bend over backwards to make them DTRT,
but I also agree that until they are fixed, having this to fall back on is
a Good Thing(tm).
For DJGPP, it's not enabled by default for test -f (you need to set
TEST_FINDS_EXE in the environment (I set it in config.site)), but test -x
always finds executables.

> I guess I can give that a try, although if it's possible to set up
> the environment in advance, that may be easier...
Of course, but I was just suggesting a kludge to get 2.50 to work for you.
Technically, you're not even supposed to set as_executable_p yourself, as
it is a variable internal to autoconf.