[GHC] #3186: findExeutable does not respect order of search path on Windows

[GHC]

#3186: findExeutable does not respect order of search path on Windows
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 Reporter:  duncan               |          Owner:                  
     Type:  bug                  |         Status:  new             
 Priority:  normal               |      Milestone:                  
Component:  libraries/directory  |        Version:  6.10.2          
 Severity:  normal               |     Resolution:                  
 Keywords:                       |       Testcase:                  
       Os:  Windows              |   Architecture:  Unknown/Multiple
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Comment (by duncan):

 Replying to [comment:4 NeilMitchell]:
 > Ahh! That explains it! I am indeed running cabal from next to haddock.

 Ok good, I'm glad we figured it out.

 You win the prize for finding this month's most peculiar bug :-)

 > I don't see why findExecutable is using the path you started the program
 from. It seems reasonable to use the current directory first, but other
 than that should jump straight to the %PATH%. For finding .dll's it makes
 sense for findExecutable to try the relative to .exe path first, which I
 suspect is why this behaviour exists.

 Though the MSDN page says it should not be used for locating .dll files
 because LoadLibrary uses a different order again.

 > Cabal should probably check GHC bin dir for haddock anyway, given the
 GHC/haddock dependency.

 Yeah: http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/546

 So, to close this ticket I think we just want to document that
 `findExecutable` searches a whole bunch of dirs. We should pin it down.
 The MSDN docs do not explicitly say. It's probably the exe dir, current
 dir, windows and system dirs and then the %PATH% (and it's modified by
 "safe search" in Vista I think).

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/3186#comment:5>
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