Re: autoconf-2.61's AC_LINK_IFELSE with MinGW cross-compilers

[Paul Eggert]

Keith Marshall <address@hidden> writes:

> While MSYS strives to provide a Unixy 
> shell, it has to work within the limitations of the underlying Win32 
> OS, and that means the ability to identify a file as executable must 
> rely on the file name extension, with the one exception of shebanged 
> script files.

If shebanged scripts are an exception, why can't there be others?

>   if test -x / >/dev/null 2>&1; then
>     as_test_x='test -x'
>   else
>     # do something frighteningly complicated and barely comprehensible
>     # (my comment, not in actual code)...
>
> 1) Tests for accessibility to search within the root directory, and has 
> nothing to do with executability of files;

But as_test_x is intended to mimic test -x.  Since 'test -x' succeeds
on searchable directories, as_test_x should too.

> would the initialisation of as_test_x 
> not be better deferred, to within the actual code invoked by AC_PROG_CC 

But macros other than AC_PROG_CC need as_test_x.  The "as_*" prefix is
a hint that this is not an Autoconf feature; it's used by non-Autoconf
code.