Re: PATH_DIRS

[Ray Andrews <rayandrews@eastlink.ca>]

On 10/08/17 03:19 PM, Bart Schaefer wrote:
> PATH_DIRS is a setopt, it *uses* $PATH. It's not a parameter
> providing alternate directories.

I would have been up the garden path there, cuz I:

$ PATH_DIR=/aWorking/Zsh/System
$ echo $PATH_DIR
/aWorking/Zsh/System

... which seemed to do just as I thought I was expecting,  however now I 
see that since that directory is on my PATH anyway, it worked but only 
(it seems) by virtue of  it working all the time anyway and I just 
didn't realize that, and  I was making an unrelated and useless variable 
:( Now I see that I completely missed the real use of that setopt.   
Thanks, God only knows how many knots I'd have tied myself into there.
>
> Anyway, it already does search like that.  You just have to chmod +x
> the script files (and add a #! line if they aren't zsh scripts).
However, scripts are run even if chmod -x, tho whence will only find 
them if '+x'.   Am I somehow missing the boat there?


>
> What it WON'T do is source scripts it finds that way into the current
> shell.  It'll always fork a subshell for them.  Too many opportunities
> for mayhem if the user hasn't explicitly asked (via the "." command)
> to have his current shell altered (potentially) by the script.
>
Yeah, I don't begrudge the dot, good to know what one is doing. Still, I 
find myself wanting whence to find anything that is executable on the 
PATH.  If I can:

/aWorking/Zsh/System $ ls -l somescript
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 24 Aug 10 21:55 somescript     <<< not marked 
executable.

/aWorking/Zsh/System $ cat somescript

echo this is somescript

/aMisc $ . somescript
this is somescript

... so it will be run if it's a script on my PATH, even if not '+x' then 
it seems intuitive that whence would also be able to find it.