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Re: bug in m4/mkdirp.m4


From: Eric Blake
Subject: Re: bug in m4/mkdirp.m4
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 21:45:14 +0000

>  EB> 'chmod -x install-sh' is not portable. 
> 
> Thanks for the info.  Do you actually know any system where this doesn't work?

Any system with coreutils-5.91 installed, and a umask that
restricts x bits differently than the current x bit setting of
the file:

$ touch file
$ chmod o+x file
$ (umask 001; chmod -x file)
chmod: file: new permissions are rw-r--r-x, not rw-r--r--
$ echo $?
1

The problem is that POSIX only specifies 'chmod -- -x file',
with the weird rule that it is affected by the current umask,
so since 'chmod -x file' is unspecified, coreutils was recently
changed to warn the user that it didn't do what the naive
user expects, while still following the POSIX formula for
which bits are changed.

> 
>  EB> It is much more portable to do 'chmod a-x install-sh'.

This bypasses the issue altogether by avoiding the
problematic -x.

--
Eric Blake






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