I finally got around to performing an experiment. There are four binary variables in the experiment: 1) Build inside the source tree vs. build outside the source tree. 2) A vanilla XEmacs 21.2.39 vs. an XEmacs 21.2.39 with this patch applied: <URL:http://www.xemacs.org/list-archives/xemacs-beta/200012/msg00170.html>;. Between builds, I completely removed the source tree, and then reunpacked the XEmacs 21.2.39 tarball to be sure there was no poisoning of one test by another. (Yes, this took awhile.) 3) Building with no previously built XEmacs installed vs. building with a previous build of 21.2.39 installed. I am using a prefix of /usr/local/test for this so that my XEmacs 21.1 won't get in the way. 4) Run in place vs. run in the install location. For each of the 16 possible combinations of these variables, I report on the values of 3 Lisp variables related to modules. Note that I did NOT specify any module directories when configure was run, so configure-module-directory and configure-site-module-directory are both nil in every case. The results are shown below. Even though variables #1 and #3 should not be affecting the outcome, they are. Also, although #4 should affect the outcome, it isn't affecting it in the right way. Note that, even though we are running in place in Experiments 3, 7, 11, and 15, paths in /usr/local/test appear in the results. Also, and much worse, although we are running the installed version in Experiments 10, 12, and 14, paths in /usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39 appear in the results! Experiment #1: Outside, vanilla, no installed tree, run in place module-load-path = nil module-directory = nil site-module-directory = nil Experiment #2: Outside, vanilla, no installed tree, installed module-load-path = nil module-directory = nil site-module-directory = nil Experiment #3: Outside, vanilla, installed tree, run in place module-load-path = ("/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs/site-modules/" "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs-21.2-b39/i686-pc-linux/" "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs-21.2-b39/i686-pc-linux/include/" "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs-21.2-b39/i686-pc-linux/modules/") module-directory = "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs-21.2-b39/i686-pc-linux/" site-module-directory = "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs/site-modules/" Experiment #4: Outside, vanilla, installed tree, installed module-load-path = ("/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs/site-modules/" "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs-21.2-b39/i686-pc-linux/" "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs-21.2-b39/i686-pc-linux/include/" "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs-21.2-b39/i686-pc-linux/modules/") module-directory = "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs-21.2-b39/i686-pc-linux/" site-module-directory = "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs/site-modules/" Experiment #5: Outside, patched, no installed tree, run in place module-load-path = nil module-directory = nil site-module-directory = nil Experiment #6: Outside, patched, no installed tree, installed module-load-path = nil module-directory = nil site-module-directory = nil Experiment #7: Outside, patched, installed tree, run in place module-load-path = ("/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs/site-modules/" "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs-21.2-b39/i686-pc-linux/modules/") module-directory = "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs-21.2-b39/i686-pc-linux/modules/" site-module-directory = "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs/site-modules/" Experiment #8: Outside, patched, installed tree, installed module-load-path = ("/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs/site-modules/" "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs-21.2-b39/i686-pc-linux/modules/") module-directory = "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs-21.2-b39/i686-pc-linux/modules/" site-module-directory = "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs/site-modules/" Experiment #9: Inside, vanilla, no installed tree, run in place module-load-path = ("/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/base64/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/ldap/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/sample/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/zlib/") module-directory = "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/" site-module-directory = nil Experiment #10: Inside, vanilla, no installed tree, installed module-load-path = ("/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/base64/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/ldap/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/sample/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/zlib/") module-directory = "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/" site-module-directory = nil Experiment #11: Inside, vanilla, installed tree, run in place module-load-path = ("/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs/site-modules/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/base64/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/ldap/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/sample/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/zlib/") module-directory = "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/" site-module-directory = "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs/site-modules/" Experiment #12: Inside, vanilla, installed tree, installed module-load-path = ("/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs/site-modules/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/base64/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/ldap/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/sample/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/zlib/") module-directory = "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/" site-module-directory = "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs/site-modules/" Experiment #13: Inside, patched, no installed tree, run in place module-load-path = ("/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/base64/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/ldap/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/sample/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/zlib/") module-directory = "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/" site-module-directory = nil Experiment #14: Inside, patched, no installed tree, installed module-load-path = ("/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/base64/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/ldap/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/sample/" "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/zlib/") module-directory = "/usr/src/xemacs-21.2.39/modules/" site-module-directory = nil Experiment #15: Inside, patched, installed tree, run in place module-load-path = ("/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs/site-modules/" "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs-21.2-b39/i686-pc-linux/modules/") module-directory = "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs-21.2-b39/i686-pc-linux/modules/" site-module-directory = "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs/site-modules/" Experiment #16: Inside, patched, installed tree, installed module-load-path = ("/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs/site-modules/" "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs-21.2-b39/i686-pc-linux/modules/") module-directory = "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs-21.2-b39/i686-pc-linux/modules/" site-module-directory = "/usr/local/test/lib/xemacs/site-modules/" Regards, -- Jerry James