Mail Archives: cygwin/2010/05/30/19:40:18
Greetings, Christopher Faylor!
>>>> >> > $ cat >a.dat
>>>> >> > /proc/registry/HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Syst
>>>> >> > emBootDevice
>>>>
>>>> > This trailing NUL character was always there, already with Cygwin 1.5.
>>>> > It's part of the file content. If strings are stored with a trailing
>>>> > NUL in a file, you don't want Cygwin to remove it for you, right?
>>>>
>>>> Wrong. The training NULL is a string value terminator for REG_SZ variables,
>>>> also a string separator for REG_MULTI_SZ ones. (Which ends with a spare NULL)
>>>> It must not be exposed to the user.
>>
>>> I disagree. When you're using tools like regtool, you're right. But
>>> when accessing the registry as *files* via the virtual /proc filesystem,
>>> you want the file content.
>>
>>Yep. And I certainly not expect the NULL in text files. You know, not every
>>console program is binary-safe when working with STDIO? Not even cygwin, as we
>>can see in this thread.
>>
>>> And the file contains the trailing NUL in REG_SZ and REG_EXPAND_SZ values,
>>> and multiple NULs in REG_MULTI_SZ values.
>>
>>That's right and true, when you're working with interface directly, but... all
>>the programs I've used in the past, and all the interfaces, they do not expose
>>trailing NULL to the client application.
>>In this case, /proc/registry is an interface, but cat is the application.
> NAME
> cat - concatenate files and print on the standard output
> I don't see anything in cat's description which claims it should know
> that some files are special and should be handled differently.
I didn't said about cat, but rather about file it reading from.
>>> What do you suppose Cygwin should do with the NULs in REG_MULTI_SZ values?
>>> Just remove them?
>>
>>Convert them to appropriate EOL sequences. And back to NULL's on write. As per
>>definition of a text as "multiple strings".
>>You don't need to argue over it, just document it properly :)
> Converting a NUL to a EOL would be very strange behavior.
Strange? I don't think so. I expect text data from text file. Not binary
stream.
> I don't think you really know what you're asking for.
I know. Look at windows own regedit and Registry Browser FAR plugin as two
examples.
They do such two-way conversion transparently for user.
--
WBR,
Andrey Repin (anrdaemon AT freemail DOT ru) 31.05.2010, <3:29>
Sorry for my terrible english...
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