Re: _AC_COMPILER_EXEEXT_DEFAULT removes a.*

[Paul Eggert]

Stepan Kasal <address@hidden> writes:

> So my wild guess it that it might have been introduced by mistake;
> and all future editors copied it worshipfully...

Yes, that sounds right to me.  Thanks for the history-searching, and
thanks, Ralf, for the bug report.  I installed this:

2007-04-28  Paul Eggert  <address@hidden>

        * lib/autoconf/lang.m4 (_AC_COMPILER_EXEEXT_DEFAULT): Don't look
        for a.* when searching for executables, as this prevents users
        from having files like a.c.  Problem reported by Ralf Wildenhues in:
        http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/autoconf-patches/2007-04/msg00029.html
        This fixes a problem introduced on 2000-12-19.

--- lib/autoconf/lang.m4        17 Nov 2006 21:04:54 -0000      1.186
+++ lib/autoconf/lang.m4        29 Apr 2007 05:50:24 -0000
@@ -477,9 +477,9 @@ AC_MSG_CHECKING([for _AC_LANG compiler d
 ac_link_default=`AS_ECHO(["$ac_link"]) | sed ['s/ -o *conftest[^ ]*//']`
 #
 # List of possible output files, starting from the most likely.
-# The algorithm is not robust to junk in `.', hence go to wildcards (a.*)
-# only as a last resort.  b.out is created by i960 compilers.
-ac_files='a_out.exe a.exe conftest.exe a.out conftest a.* conftest.* b.out'
+# The algorithm is not robust to junk in `.', hence go to wildcards
+# (conftest.*) only as a last resort.  b.out is created by i960 compilers.
+ac_files='a_out.exe a.exe conftest.exe a.out conftest conftest.* b.out'
 #
 # The IRIX 6 linker writes into existing files which may not be
 # executable, retaining their permissions.  Remove them first so a