path testing functions: accept stream argument.

* share/txr/stdlib/path-test.tl (do-path-test): Check also
for the argument being a stream, and pass to statfun.

* txr.1: Documentation updated and improved.

2 files changed, 32 insertions, 18 deletions

diff --git a/share/txr/stdlib/path-test.tl b/share/txr/stdlib/path-test.tl
index d550352b..4f589fef 100644
--- a/share/txr/stdlib/path-test.tl
+++ b/share/txr/stdlib/path-test.tl
@@ -25,7 +25,10 @@
 ;; OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
 
 (defun sys:do-path-test (statfun path testfun)
-  [testfun (if (stringp path) (ignerr [statfun path]) path)])
+  [testfun (if (or (stringp path)
+                   (streamp path))
+             (ignerr [statfun path])
+             path)])
 
 (eval-only
   (defmacro sys:path-test ((sym statfun path) . body)
diff --git a/txr.1 b/txr.1
index 51d6b995..ad988fee 100644
--- a/txr.1
+++ b/txr.1
@@ -59194,32 +59194,43 @@ on which operations have failed.
 
 .SS* Unix Filesystem Object Existence, Type and Access Tests
 
-The following functions all accept, as the
-.meta path
-argument, either a character string, or a structure returned by the
-.code stat
-or
-.code lstat
-functions.
+Functions in this category perform various tests on the attributes of
+filesystem objects.
 
-If the
+The functions all have a
 .meta path
-argument is a string, then
+parameter, which accepts three types of arguments. If a character
+string is specified, it denotes a filesystem path to
+be probed for properties such as ownership and permissions.
+The object is probed using the
 .code stat
-is used to retrieve information about it, except in the case of
-the
+function except in the case of
 .code path-symlink-p
-function, which uses
+which uses
 .codn lstat .
-The subsequent test is then based on the result of this call.
 
-If the
-.meta path
-argument is the result of a
+If instead a stream is specified as
+.metn path ,
+then the associated filesystem descriptor is probed for these properties.
+Otherwise, a
+.code stat
+structure, for example one returned by the
 .code stat
 or
 .code lstat
-call, then the testing is based on that object.
+function may be specified, in which case no system object
+is probed. The properties to be tested are those given in the
+.code stat
+object.
+
+Note: in a situation when it is necessary to use any of these functions to
+probe the properties of a symbolic link itself (other than the function
+.code path-symlink-p
+which does so implicitly) it is necessary to first invoke
+.code lstat
+on the symlink's path, and then pass the resulting
+.code stat
+structure to that function instead of the path.
 
 Some of the accessibility tests (functions which determine whether the
 calling process has certain access rights) may not be perfectly accurate, since