Subject: Re: Mysterious gdb behavior.
From: Robert Collins <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: 29 Jul 2002 10:43:37 +1000

On Mon, 2002-07-29 at 10:31, Paul Derbyshire wrote:
> On 28 Jul 2002 at 21:20, Robert Collins wrote:

> > I won't say what you don't want to hear. You might consider searching
> > the friendly archives, because they *tell* you what is worse - a home
> > dir with spaces or a home dir w/o spaces.
> 
> But once it's set, it's set. 

Untrue. Edit /etc/passwd.

> > should != doesn't. I agree, it sucks. Still, unless you want to patch
> > all the broken software out there (which BTW includes pure win32
> > programs last time I checked), then you need to deal with it one way or
> > another.
> 
> Why isn't most of it (the open source stuff, that is) already 
> patched? 

Good question.

> > *Please*, research before asserting. Because non-cygwin1.dll linked
> > programs don't unquote arguments this solution actually sucks worse than
> > the current status quo.
> 
> Obviously it should quote them only to other Cygwin linked programs. 
> Which it can identify by whether it launching something in the cygwin 
> tree or not.

Untrue. cygcheck, wish and other programs in the cygwin tree may be
native programs, and cygwin linked programs may reside outside the tree.

> In fact, the general rule to quote arguments to a 
> program launched purely by name and not to one launched by an 
> absolute path would probably work pretty well. Everything on Cygwin's 
> PATH can be assumed to unquote arguments I'd imagine.

Imagine away... Cygwin's path includes the windows directory - and that
means many programs that won't unquote arguments.
 
> > Those short names do not always exist - you'll need a fallback for those
> > cases.
> 
> They do. Windows always assigns an 8.3 version of a filename that has 
> a long name, a long extension, multiple extensions (foo.tar.gz, 
> etc.), or an unusual character in the name such as a space.

How to Disable Automatic Short File Name Generation:
<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];Q210638>

I'm bowing out of this thread. You've shown yourself incapable of
discriminating between your imagination and reality. It makes it very
hard to discuss the topic at hand. 
 
As a final comment in the vague hope you'll try rather than just arguing
from imagination:
* You should try Chris's list of tests.
* You could ask the list (via the archives or direct) the simplest way
to get rid of the space in your cygwin home directory. 

Rob