> -----Original Message----- > From: Geoff Clare [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Thursday, November 24, 2016 11:32 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: when does PATH search stop? > > Mark Galeck <[email protected]> wrote, on 24 Nov 2016: > > > > >There is no precise definition of "acceptable" > > > > Yes currently there isn't , but it would be easy to make such a > > definition, simply, for various failure errno numbers (which are > > enumerated in the standard), say "acceptable", "not acceptable", or > > perhaps "unspecified". > > > > I really don't see the need for the standard to spell this out in such > detail. > > When it says "a regular file acceptable as a new process image file", > it should be obvious that it means the file contents can be used by > exec*() to create a new process image. The only error numbers listed > for exec*() that relate to file contents are EINVAL and ENOEXEC.
My understanding of the problem is that some shells seem to base their decision only on a file's executable permission bits and not whether the file can actually be loaded by exec*(). However, I would argue that non-directory files that have the executable bit set but that cannot be loaded by exec*() are mis-configured -- perhaps this needs to be stated somewhere.
