X-Recipient:	archive-cygwin AT delorie DOT com
X-Spam-Check-By:	sourceware.org
Message-ID:	<476E5430.3D01052D@dessent.net>
Date:	Sun, 23 Dec 2007 04:27:28 -0800
From:	Brian Dessent <brian AT dessent DOT net>
X-Mailer:	Mozilla 4.79 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U)
MIME-Version:	1.0
To:	cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject:	Re: rsync 2.6.9-2 cannot sync file with special long filename
References:	<476E5113 DOT 20902 AT bigfoot DOT com>
X-IsSubscribed:	yes
Reply-To:	cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Mailing-List:	contact cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com; run by ezmlm
List-Id:	<cygwin.cygwin.com>
List-Subscribe:	<mailto:cygwin-subscribe AT cygwin DOT com>
List-Archive:	<http://sourceware.org/ml/cygwin/>
List-Post:	<mailto:cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
List-Help:	<mailto:cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com>, <http://sourceware.org/ml/#faqs>
Sender:	cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com
Mail-Followup-To:	cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Delivered-To:	mailing list cygwin AT cygwin DOT com

Michael wrote:

> I assume this is a bug in rsync or bash, and I believe the colon is
> causing the trouble.

You are correct that the colon is the problem, but it is not a bug. 
This is a restriction imposed by the design of Windows -- there are a
number of characters that Windows does not allow in filenames and the
colon is one of them.  You can see a full specification here:
<http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365247(VS.85).aspx>

In this case, NTFS reserves the colon to denote alternate data streams. 
There's nothing that rsync or Cygwin can do to change that.

> Does anyone know a workaround? 

You can use a managed mount as a workaround.  This causes Cygwin to
encode characters that Windows won't allow in filenames with a quoted
version.  It only works for Cygwin applications, obviously, as if you
look at the filenames using a non-Cygwin application they will look like
gibberish because of the encoding.  It also shortens the effective
maximum file/path length because each character that is encoded
effectively takes three characters in the real filename.

> If no - is it enough
> to post the bug here, or is there another bug reporting channel for cygwin?

This is the correct place to report problems, but again this is not a
bug.

Brian

--
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/

- Raw text -