Mail Archives: cygwin/2010/06/08/20:17:38
Ill throw in my two cents. I don't want to overwrite an existing file
accidentally. Ie if I ls > foo and that writes to foo.exe I would be
frustrated. This hasn't happened to me yet so it might not be to big of
a problem. It seems a bit odd that the behavior would change if there
is a file in the directory of a different name.
Preferable I would like cp foo bar, to create a file "bar" without an
extension as opposed to overwriting "bar.exe". Anyway its good to have
heard about this.
mbs
On Tue, 2010-06-08 at 12:22 -0400, RISINGP1 AT nationwide DOT com wrote:
> >> I disagree. This seems to me to be adopting the Microsoft policy of
> doing
> >> the user's thinking for them: "I don't care what they want - we know
> >> what's best for them." If a person wants to have "foo" and "foo.exe"
> in
> >> the same directory, that should be allowed. A few times getting
> tripped
> >> up by the wrong thing executing will be a good life lesson for the
> person,
> >> and teach about how different operating systems work to boot. Should I
> >> create "foo" as an executable, and "foo.exe" exists, then if I want to
> run
> >> "foo.exe", I should have to call it out specifically. I can see this
> >> might cause some confusion should, unbeknownst to the user, "foo.exe"
> >> exists earlier in the path than "foo", but that would become an
> >> education on how to use the PATH variable. This confusion arises
> >> from Cygwin's kowtowing to Microsoft's dubious idea of using extensions
> to
> >> control the handling of files.
> >
> >If you took away Cygwin's .exe extension handling and just relied on
> >file permissions like Unix, then using Cygwin tools from a cmd.exe
> >prompt would become problematic.
> >
> >Windows wants that .exe (or .bat or .cmd or .msi, etc) extension and
> >doesn't give a whip if you chmod a file's permissions +x. Without an
> >extension, Windows has no idea what to do with the file.
> >
> >That's fine if you never do anything with Cygwin commands outside of a
> >Cygwin shell, but I don't think this is a globally desirable
> >behaviour.
> >
>
> Just a question:
>
> Shouldn't it be up to the user to determine how a file is to be used, and
> name the file accordingly?
>
> If the file is to used only in a Cygwin environment, leave the extension
> off is desired.
>
> If the file is to used in both a Cygwin and a Windows environment, add an
> extension (like ".sh" or ".exe" or whatever is needed). It is easy enough
> to teach Windows how to recognize what to do with a new extension (like
> ".sh").
>
> I am just against operating systems making decisions for the user, or
> restricting him/her unnecessarily. And, yes, I know that this happens
> all the time...
>
> Phil Rising risingp1 AT nationwide DOT com
>
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