some problem in vc

[Ville Skyttä]

On Friday 08 February 2008, dhruva wrote:
[...]
> ---------------------------
> git.exe - Unable To Locate Component
> ---------------------------
> This application has failed to start because libcurl-4.dll was not
> found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem.
> ---------------------------
> OK
> ---------------------------
[...]
> A few queries:
> 1. If 'git.exe' (or executable) is not found in the PATH, should that
> system be ignored?

I don't think I would object to a patch implementing such a thing, but FWIW, 
it doesn't seem to be the practice currently.  mercurial.el in the vc package 
is the only "backend" that seems to try anything like that at the moment.

By the way, the error message you posted makes me believe that git.exe 
actually *was* in your PATH, it just fails to start.  So checking for its 
existence doesn't seem to accomplish what you ask; perhaps invoking something 
harmless like "git --version" and checking its exit status to see if git is 
available would.

> 2. Do you feel adding to 'exec-path' should have worked? Is
> 'exec-path' very much different from 'PATH'?

C-h v exec-path:

*List of directories to search programs to run in subprocesses.
Each element is a string (directory name) or nil (try default directory).

To me that does not imply that the PATH environment variable of an invoked 
subprocess would be set to or appended/prepended with the contents of 
`exec-path', it is just the list of directories where the actual programs to 
run are searched from.