scott%bgsu.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA (09/21/85)
From: Tom Scott <scott%bgsu.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA> In the $BUILD/etc/Makefile a tacit assumption is made to the effect that $PATH includes the current directory. Note the following three lines from $BUILD/etc/Makefile: test-distrib: test-distrib.c cc -o test-distrib test-distrib.c test-distrib It might be a little safer to change the third line to read as follows: ./test-distrib Better safe than sorry. If anyone finds lines like this in any other Makefiles, in particular in the $BUILD/src/Makefile, please tell me about them. Thanks. I hear some of you grumbling, "Why doesn't he just define his PATH variable to include the current directory?" That question can best be answered by another question: Are you absolutely sure that every directory you `cd' to won't have some strange executable files that you might unintentionally execute? Better safe than sorry. A similar point can be made about this line from the $BUILD/src/paths.h.dist file: #define PATH_LOADSEARCH ":/usr/local/gnuemacs/lisp" Watch out for the colon. I wasted not a few hours trying to figure out why the load-path variable wasn't being set the way I thought it should be set. Of course, the load-path can be set by putting the appropriate (setq load-path ...) command in your $HOME/.emacs file. But that's not the point.