Subject: Re: How to (dynamically) control Unix/Dos PATH-like variable translation
From: Christopher Faylor <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 22:23:06 -0400

On Sun, Apr 01, 2001 at 10:00:57PM -0400, Jan Vicherek wrote:
>On Sun, 1 Apr 2001, Christopher Faylor wrote:
>> On Sun, Apr 01, 2001 at 12:53:28AM -0500, Jan Vicherek wrote:
>> >On Fri, 30 Mar 2001, Christopher Faylor wrote:
>> >How can I control which variables get translated Dos->Unix when
>> >starting a CYGWIN binary from Windows and which variables get
>> >translated Unix->Dos when starting a DOS/Windows binary from CYGWIN ?
>> >
>> >http://www.cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using.html#USING-PATHNAMES says
>> >that HOME, PATH, and LD_LIBRARY_PATH are converted, but it doesn't say
>> >how to control any additional ones in runtime.
>> 
>> The main reason for this is that it isn't possible.  Don't know why you think
>> that this list is flexible.  It isn't.
>
>I didn't see what would preclude the code which says "now translate
>PATH variable" from one format to another from saying "now translate
>PATH variable and all other variables listed in variable
>CYGWIN_TRANSLATABLE"
>
>Is there a reason why we couldn't have such "CYGWIN_TRANSLATABLE"
>variable, which would list names (or patterns) of other variables that
>are to be translated in fashion similair to "PATH" variable ?

Maybe you are misinterpreting what I said.  It isn't possible because it
isn't implemented.  My observation of "Don't know why..." was basically
aimed at the fact that you seemed to be under the impression that this
was some kind of undocumented feature.

>What efforts do you estimate it would take to whip up such code ?
>
>Do you think such feature wouldn't be very useful ?  Why ?

I'm not sure what estimates you're looking for.  It would probably take
me a couple of hours of programming to do this.

Would it be useful?  Since this is the first time that I can recall that
anyone has asked for this, I think it would be only marginally useful.
If you are controlling the environment to such a state that you can add
a CYGWIN_TRANSLATABLE variable, then just set the environment variables
using posix paths.  I believe that Cygwin already handles the ones that
should be handled.

However, as usual, if someone wants to contribute a patch, I will
consider it's inclusion in the sources.

In case anyone is interested in submitting a patch, please first check
out the Contributing link at http://cygwin.com/ .  Read it thoroughly
and, when it is time to provide the patch, make sure that you follow
all of the rules with regard to the ChangeLog entry, patch format,
and coding styles.

cgf

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