Rearrange shell search path

[Eric Blake]

I encountered a Solaris 8 box at work where the system bash is still at 
version 1.x.   I wanted a more modern shell, so I promptly changed my $PATH, 
built $HOME/bin/bash 3.0, and updated my .bash_profile to use syntax that 
only bash 2+ supports.  That was fine until I ran configure from one of many 
autoconf'd packages, which thanks to _AS_DETECT_BETTER_SHELL, selects the 
older /usr/bin/bash and dies when invoking my .bash_profile.  (I don't have 
a better trace of the actual problems, because I'm typing this at home). 
True, the bug is partly my fault, and I cleaned up my .bash_profile to 
accomodate the older version of bash, but it caught me by surprise that my 
new bash 3.0 wasn't being found in configure scripts.

I think the search for the best shell should favor the user's $PATH over 
/bin and /usr/bin, in case the user has a more up-to-date shell 
intentionally at the front of their path.

2004-11-23  Eric Blake  <address@hidden>

        * lib/m4sugar/m4sh.m4 (_AS_DETECT_BETTER_SHELL): Favor the user's
        path, in case they have a more up-to-date shell than the system.

Index: lib/m4sugar/m4sh.m4
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/autoconf/autoconf/lib/m4sugar/m4sh.m4,v
retrieving revision 1.121
diff -u -p -r1.121 m4sh.m4
--- lib/m4sugar/m4sh.m4 14 Nov 2004 06:35:21 -0000      1.121
+++ lib/m4sugar/m4sh.m4 24 Nov 2004 05:10:30 -0000
@@ -219,7 +219,7 @@ if test "x$CONFIG_SHELL" = x; then
         _AS_RUN([_AS_DETECT_SUGGESTED_BODY]) 2> /dev/null],
     [],
     [as_candidate_shells=
-    _AS_PATH_WALK([/bin$PATH_SEPARATOR/usr/bin$PATH_SEPARATOR$PATH],
+    _AS_PATH_WALK([$PATH$PATH_SEPARATOR/bin$PATH_SEPARATOR/usr/bin],
       [case $as_dir in
         /*)
           for as_base in sh bash ksh sh5; do


--
Someday, I might put a cute statement here.

Eric Blake             address@hidden