Subject: Re: Proper location of the cygwin.dll WAS: Re: b19 and cygwin.dll
From: [email-masked] (Craig Dickson)

19 Feb 1998 16:33:09 -0800
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
To: <[email-masked]>

Magosanyi Arpad wrote:

>Well, a shared library is a shared library. Its distinguishing features
from
>an executable binary are the following:
>- You cannot execute it
>- More executable binaries, possibly in different locations use it. Hence
>the name "shared".

Yes, but cygwin.dll is specifically a component of the cygwin package, which
needs to be installed before most Unix install/config scripts will run, so
it seems reasonable to keep the dll with the base set of executables, given
the way the Windows platform locates dlls.

>> Is it customary to add the /lib and /usr/lib paths to the PATH
>> environment variable?  I don't think so.

>
>It is also not customary to look for shared libraries
>in the PATH.

It is on Microsoft OSs, which are, after all cygwin's host platform. So one
question here is where to strike the proper balance between conforming to
the host system's conventions and emulating Unix. I don't see any reason to
devise a custom way of locating cygwin.dll when the OS will do it for free
if it is on the PATH (which the cygwin executables need to be on anyway).

>I meant the need of conforming to FSSTND rather seriously. I think you
>overlooked that part, which is a pity because this is the point we should
>argue about. The location of shared libraries is a logical consequence of
>the outcome of that issue. I propose to talk this over first.

Excuse me, but I'm not all that familiar with POSIX; my Unix experience is
mostly as a user, and as a writer of fairly simple C programs and perl/sh
scripts, not as a sysadmin or serious developer. What is FSSTND, and how do
you see it as being relevant to cygwin?

Craig

-
For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to
"[email-masked]" with one line of text: "help".