> Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2005 05:36:26 -0700 > From: Eric Blake <ebb9@xxxxxxx> > CC: bug-texinfo@xxxxxxx, autoconf@xxxxxxx > > > If this is what Autoconf 2.59 really does (i.e., no typos etc. in this > > snippet), then Autoconf 2.59 is broken, at least for DJGPP, because it > > will always produce PATH_SEPARATOR=:. This is because it invalidates > > PATH, and therefore defeats the DJGPP magic that looks for sh.exe > > along PATH if /bin/sh.exe does not exist. (And /bin/sh.exe does not > > exists on almost every DJGPP installation.) > > If this is true about DJGPP, then autoconf needs to revisit how > PATH_SEPARATOR is calculated. It's true, and autoconf does need to revisit that. (FWIW, I think this DJGPP feature is a very useful one: it lets shell scripts and Makefile's that say "SHELL = /bin/sh" seamlessly run unaltered without requiring that the user has a /bin/sh.exe file on each drive, and without any need for Cygwin-style normalization of the installation directory to `/'.) > There is always the uname utility Yes, but I hoped OSTYPE says something useful in the Cywin Bash. Does it? If it does, we could avoid invoking `uname'. If not, `uname' is the way to go (its DJGPP port prints a string that contains "MS-DOS"). > >>Additionally, according to autoconf, `test -x' is not portable. > > > > But needed for DJGPP/MinGW, where "test -f tex" does not find tex.exe, > > but "test -x tex" does. > > > > So if this is changed to not use "test -x", the non-Posix systems will > > still need "test -x" (which is okay for those systems, since the > > ported Bash supports "test -x"). > > CVS Autoconf also tackled this issue, see > http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/autoconf-patches/2004-12/msg00057.html I don't see how it does. Perhaps I'm missing something. The problem is that on a typical DOS/Windows box, "test -f tex" will simply fail, since there's no file named `tex'. That's because the TeX executable is called `tex.exe', but the script doesn't check "test -f tex.exe". Therefore, "test -x tex" was modified to check for `tex.exe' if `tex' does not exist. Unless I'm missing something, the above message from autoconf-patches does not solve this problem, since "test -f tex && test -x tex" will fail due to the absence of a file named literally `tex'. > > Again, doing the latter (i.e. determining the location of TeX at > > configure time) might be okay on Posix systems, but not on > > DJGPP/MinGW, since it is _very_ customary on those systems to download > > pre-compiled binaries, and thus configure-time settings are usually > > invalid. (Actually, I think Cygwin users will not like your > > suggestion either, since AFAIK they, too, tend to download binaries.) > > > > But on cygwin downloads, they tend to be to a normalized path (ie the > cygwin installation point is normalized to /, all pre-compiled cygwin > binaries are put in /bin, and /usr/bin is mounted to /bin), so even if the > tex executable is downloaded to something as outrageous as 'q:\my > hairy\windows\path\cygwin\bin', the precompiled binary still sees it at > /usr/bin because of the PATH normalization going on. I was thinking about a non-Cygwin TeX (e.g., fpTeX or TeXLive) being installed. However, if Cygwin users are told not to use non-Cygwin ports of TeX, perhaps that problem does not exist for Cygwin users. It is still a real issue for DJGPP/MinGW users, though. _______________________________________________ Autoconf mailing list Autoconf@xxxxxxx http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/autoconf
