Re: bug in m4/mkdirp.m4

[Eric Blake]

Alexandre Duret-Lutz <adl <at> src.lip6.fr> writes:

> 2005-10-03  Alexandre Duret-Lutz  <adl <at> gnu.org>
> 
>       * tests/nobase.test: Exercise previous patch.
> 
> +# Remove the 'x' bits just for fun.  (Peter O'Gorman said: "If an
> +# upstream source tarball does not use the autotools, it is sometimes
> +# easier to build if it is modified to use them. Then a patch is
> +# generated, and applied to the unpacked clean sources during the
> +# build. patch(1) knows nothing about permissions, so executable bits
> +# etc can disappear.")
> +chmod -x install-sh

'chmod -x install-sh' is not portable.  -x looks like an option, but POSIX does 
not specify what an implementation must do with an option.  And even if it is 
treated the same as 'chmod -- -x install-sh', which is specified by POSIX, it 
can only change mode bits according the the current setting of umask, such that 
the file might STILL be executable afterwards.  It is much more portable to 
do 'chmod a-x install-sh'.

--
Eric Blake