Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2006 00:34:56 -0400
From: Christopher Faylor <cgf-no-personal-reply-please@cygwin.com>
To: cygwin@cygwin.com
Subject: Re: cygwin unix commands in windows
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On Wed, Oct 04, 2006 at 11:23:49PM -0500, Gary R. Van Sickle wrote:
>> From: Eric Blake
>[snip]
>>You asked, so I'll answer.  Yes, it is an accident that other tools
>>understand c:/.
>
>It's no accident that make used to, and now again will, be supporting
>Windows paths.  People put considerable time and effort into making it
>work originally, and then again just recently in finally solving the
>problem and pushing the fix upstream.

...and, if you're playing along at home, it has been shown that Eli's
change still may not be right.

>[snip]
>>Another example of a program that parses its arguments is make; you
>>need only read last months archives for the debate about make 3.80 vs.
>>make 3.81 for proof that using DOS paths in cygwin programs is ASKING
>>for problems.
>
>I think you're misreading the make issue.  Using Windows paths in make
>was apparently never "asking for problems" until the last release, at
>which time a problem was introduced, a solution was found, pushed
>upstream, and the problem is now solved (or will be when the next
>Cygwin build is released).

Actually, once again, the "make automatically understands MS-DOS paths"
behavior was a bug.  This behavior was supposed to be controlled by a
command-line option or an environment variable (if you don't believe me,
ask Geoff Noer).  That's why I specifically mentioned the option and the
environment variable in my announcement.  Apparently, I broke make
somewhere along the line, people got used to the behavior that I
inadvertently introduced, and they then considered automatic detection
of MS-DOS paths to be a Constitutional right.

cgf

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