Subject: RE: Executable links?
From: "Buchbinder, Barry (NIH/NIAID)" <[email-masked]>
To: "'chris'" <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 18:11:55 -0400

WFM on XP:

/bin> ln -s bash.exe b

The following opens bash in a new window.

/bin> cygstart b.lnk

But in case you are worried that cygstart is doing some cygwin-type magic,
the following also opens bash in a new window.

/bin> cmd /c start b

Opening explorer and double clicking on "b" opens bash in a new window.

Perhaps you have the CYGWIN environmental variable a set to include
"nowinsymlinks".  See http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using-cygwinenv.html

"use a proper shell" is likely to raise some hackles on this list.  Perhaps
you meant "use a 'native' shell".

-----Original Message-----
From: chris
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2004 4:21 PM
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Executable links?

Just a couple of tiny questions / thoughts.

A number of people (myself included) have been "caught" over the fact 
that cygwin shortcuts can obviously not be executed from a windows 
shell. There appears to me to be 4 ways of dealing with this

1) Ignore the problem, use a proper shell
2) On NTFS, use hard links. I did this for a while, then I thought I 
heard that it could cause problems when programs were updated
3) Have option to duplicate linked files. I've been doing this for a 
while now, and the loss of disk space is minimal
4) Replace links to executables with a very small executable which does 
the linking process. I've been experimenting a little with this and it 
doesn't seem like a bad idea, except a) it involves hacking where you 
want to link to into the executable (not too bad), b) the shortcut is no 
longer reckonised by ls / ln / etc (would this be hard to fix?) and c) I 
can't make a cygwin executable <10kish (this is still not that large, 
and I'm sure someone better than me could make it smaller.

Any comments / suggestions?

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