Mail Archives: cygwin/2007/09/26/22:42:15
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A new release of bash, 3.2.25-17, has been uploaded for experimental use
(3.2.25-16 remains current for now).
NEWS:
=====
This is a minor patch release. It fixes a bug in "(times > file) | cat",
introduced in -11. It incorporates a patch that retries up to 4 times
over the course of 15 seconds if fork() fails with EAGAIN. It also
updates the postinstall script to guarantee that /dev/std{in,out,err} and
/dev/fd exist. Based on user response, I may be convinced to fold in the
rest of Igor's create_devices.sh [see
http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using-specialnames.html] into the bash
postinstall, as it admittedly looks a bit weird when 'ls /dev' shows
/dev/stdin but not /dev/null (rest assured, all the devices still exist,
even if a listing of /dev does not show them).
Based on how the postinstall behaves, I will either promote this version
to current, or else spin 3.2.25-18 to correct the issues, in a couple of
weeks.
There are a few things you should be aware of before using this version:
1. When using binary mounts, cygwin programs try to emulate Linux. Bash
on Linux does not understand \r\n line endings, but interprets the \r
literally, which leads to syntax errors or odd variable assignments.
Therefore, you will get the same behavior on Cygwin binary mounts by default.
2. d2u is your friend. You can use it to convert any problematic script
into binary line endings.
3. Cygwin text mounts automatically work with either line ending style,
because the \r is stripped before bash reads the file. If you absolutely
must use files with \r\n line endings, consider mounting the directory
where those files live as a text mount. However, text mounts are not as
well tested or supported on the cygwin mailing list, so you may encounter
other problems with other cygwin tools in those directories.
4. This version of bash has a cygwin-specific shell option, named "igncr"
to force bash to ignore \r, independently of cygwin's mount style. As of
bash-3.2.3-5, it controls regular scripts, command substitution, and
sourced files. I hope to convince the upstream bash maintainer to accept
this patch into the future bash 4.0 even on Linux, rather than keeping it
a cygwin-specific patch, but only time will tell. There are several ways
to activate this option:
4a. For a single affected script, add this line just after the she-bang:
(set -o igncr) 2>/dev/null && set -o igncr; # comment is needed
4b. For a single script, invoke bash explicitly with the shopt, as in
'bash -o igncr ./myscript' rather than the simpler './myscript'.
4c. To affect all scripts, export the environment variable BASH_ENV,
pointing to a file that sets the shell option as desired. Bash will
source this file on startup for every script.
4d. Added in the bash-3.2-2 release: export the environment variable
SHELLOPTS with igncr included in it. It is read-only from within bash,
but you can set it before invoking bash; once in bash, it auto-tracks the
current state of 'set -o igncr'. If exported, then all bash child
processes inherit the same option settings; with the exception added in
3.2.9-11 that certain interactive options are not inherited in
non-interactive use.
5. You can also experiment with the IFS variable for controlling how bash
will treat \r during variable expansion.
6. Normally, cygwin treats DOS-style paths as binary only. This release
of bash includes a hack to check the underlying mount point of files, even
when passed as DOS style paths, but other cygwin tools do not. You are
better off learning how to use POSIX-style paths.
7. There are varying levels of speed at which bash operates. The fastest
is on a binary mount with igncr disabled (the default behavior). Next
would be text mounts with igncr disabled and no \r in the underlying file.
Next would be binary mounts with igncr enabled. And the slowest that bash
will operate is on text mounts with igncr enabled.
8. If you don't like how bash behaves, then propose a patch, rather than
proposing idle ideas. This turn of events has already been talked to
death on the mailing lists by people with many ideas, but few patches.
9. If you forget to read this release announcement, the best you can
expect when you complain to the list is a link back to this email.
Remember, you must not have any bash or /bin/sh instances running when you
upgrade the bash package. This release requires cygwin-1.5.24-1 or
later; and it requires libreadline6-5.2.7-9. See also the upstream
documentation in /usr/share/doc/bash-3.2.25/.
DESCRIPTION:
============
Bash is an sh-compatible shell that incorporates useful features from the
Korn shell (ksh) and C shell (csh). It is intended to conform to the IEEE
POSIX P1003.2/ISO 9945.2 Shell and Tools standard. It offers functional
improvements over sh for both programming and interactive use. In
addition, most sh scripts can be run by Bash without modification.
As of the bash 3.0 series, cygwin /bin/sh defaults to bash, not ash,
similar to Linux distributions.
UPDATE:
=======
To update your installation, click on the "Install Cygwin now" link on the
http://cygwin.com/ web page. This downloads setup.exe to your system.
Save it and run setup, answer the questions and pick up 'bash' in the
'Base' category (it should already be selected). Since this is an
experimental release, you will need to use the 'Exp' radio button.
DOWNLOAD:
=========
Note that downloads from sources.redhat.com (aka cygwin.com) aren't
allowed due to bandwidth limitations. This means that you will need to
find a mirror which has this update, please choose the one nearest to you:
http://cygwin.com/mirrors.html
QUESTIONS:
==========
If you want to make a point or ask a question the Cygwin mailing list is
the appropriate place.
- --
Eric Blake
volunteer cygwin bash maintainer
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