access: Document limitations on Windows.

Suggested by Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>.

* doc/posix-functions/access.texi: Mention two limitations on Windows.

2 files changed, 20 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 3b48b42d33..cde7792e1a 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,4 +1,10 @@
-2019-09-15  Bruno Haible  <bruno@clisp.org>
+2019-09-28  Bruno Haible  <bruno@clisp.org>
+
+	access: Document limitations on Windows.
+	Suggested by Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>.
+	* doc/posix-functions/access.texi: Mention two limitations on Windows.
+
+2019-09-28  Bruno Haible  <bruno@clisp.org>
 
 	findprog-in: Fix comment.
 	Reported by Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>.
diff --git a/doc/posix-functions/access.texi b/doc/posix-functions/access.texi
index 49064d2bb0..8bfa2c1a67 100644
--- a/doc/posix-functions/access.texi
+++ b/doc/posix-functions/access.texi
@@ -31,4 +31,17 @@ this function, especially in a set-uid or set-gid program.
 This function does not have an option for not following symbolic links
 (like @code{stat} versus @code{lstat}).  If you need this option, use
 the Gnulib module @code{faccessat} with the @code{AT_EACCESS} flag.
+@item
+On native Windows, files whose basename does not contain a @samp{.}
+cannot be executed through @code{execlp} or @code{execvp}.  Nevertheless,
+this function may return true for such files.
+@item
+On Windows, different facilities for executing a program have different
+ways of finding an executable file, by trying various suffixes.  For
+example, @code{execlp} and @code{execvp} search for files with the
+suffixes @code{.com}, @code{.exe}, @code{.bat}, @code{.cmd}, when the
+file with the given file name does not exist.  Whereas @code{cmd.exe}
+searches according to the @code{PATHEXT} environment variable.  This
+function does not perform any search; it merely looks at the file with
+the given file name.
 @end itemize