Subject: ls: reading directory /: No such file or directory
From: Jeff <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 15:42:49 -0800
Newsgroups: lists.cygwin
List-Id: <cygwin.cygwin.com>

On Sun, 23 Dec 2007 04:27:28 -0800,
Brian Dessent <brian[at]dessent[dot]net> wrote:

>In this case, NTFS reserves the colon to denote alternate data streams. 

Heh... A Google search on that topic made for some interesting reading.
In light of it, I'm wondering at this curiosity, which I have not seen
with previous versions of cygwin1.dll:

$ ls -la /
[after 2-3 seconds delay...]
ls: reading directory /: No such file or directory
total 430
drwx------+ 21 Administrator None      0 Dec 13 06:11 .
drwx------+ 21 Administrator None      0 Dec 13 06:11 ..
drwx------+  2 Administrator None      0 Dec 19 12:23 bin
-rwx------   1 Administrator None    766 Jan  8  1997 cygnus.ico
-rwx------   1 Administrator None     55 Jun  1  2002 cygwin.bat
-rwx------   1 Administrator None   7022 Dec 19 11:08 cygwin.ico
drwx------+  6 Administrator None      0 Dec 19 10:39 cygwindl
drwx------+  2 Administrator None      0 Dec 19 02:25 dev
drwx------+ 11 Administrator None      0 Dec 19 12:55 etc
drwx------+  6 Administrator None      0 Dec 23 11:04 home
drwx------+ 22 Administrator None      0 Dec 19 02:24 lib
drwx------+  2 Administrator None      0 May  9  2006 sbin
-rwx------   1 Administrator None 415232 Dec 13 06:11 setup.exe
-rwx------   1 Administrator None  29636 Oct  1  2005 setup.log
-rwx------   1 Administrator None   1381 Oct  1  2005 setup.log.full
drwx------+  2 Administrator None      0 Dec 23 15:42 tmp
drwx------+ 19 Administrator None      0 Dec 19 02:22 usr
drwx------+  8 Administrator None      0 Dec 19 02:22 var

[Note: 'ls -l' and 'ls' do the same.]

$ uname -a
CYGWIN_NT-5.1 winxp-notebook 1.5.25(0.156/4/2) 2007-12-14 19:21 i686 Cygwin

$ mount

\\Winxp-inspiron\c on /inspiron type system (binmode)
C:\WINDOWS\TEMP on /tmp type system (binmode)
\\Winxp-desk\c on /desk-c type system (binmode)
\\Winxp-desk\d on /desk-d type system (binmode)
C:\Cygwin\bin on /usr/bin type system (binmode)
C:\Cygwin\lib on /usr/lib type system (binmode)
C:\Cygwin on / type system (binmode)
A: on /a type system (textmode)
C: on /c type system (textmode)
D: on /d type system (textmode)
E: on /e type system (textmode)

[Note: this is the same mount table I've been using for the past
several versions of the dll. So, does '/:' have something to do with
alternate data streams? Hmmm... Let's check with a streams-aware
enhanced command processor...]

C:\>dir /?
Display information about files and subdirectories.
[...]
        /: (show streams)       /L(ower case)
[...]

[After creating an experimental file with an ADS...]

C:\DOWNLOAD\extract>dir /:

 Volume in drive C is unlabeled      Serial number is 485E:9DF1
 Directory of  C:\DOWNLOAD\extract\*

12/23/2007   1:46p        <DIR>    .
12/23/2007   1:46p        <DIR>    ..
[...]
12/23/2007   1:45p             50  stream.txt  [<== base file]
                               45    aux:$DATA [<== stream.txt:aux]
      2,098,087 bytes in 59 files and 2 dirs    2,207,744 bytes allocated
  2,882,252,800 bytes free

[OK, now let's see if any ADS show up in connection to Cygwin
directories...]

C:\>dir /:

 Volume in drive C is unlabeled      Serial number is 485E:9DF1
 Directory of  C:\*

12/13/2007   6:11a        <DIR>    cygwin
 3/14/2004   5:28p        <DIR>    Documents and Settings
[...]

C:\>dir /: cygwin\

 Volume in drive C is unlabeled      Serial number is 485E:9DF1
 Directory of  C:\cygwin\*

12/13/2007   6:11a        <DIR>    .
12/13/2007   6:11a        <DIR>    ..
12/19/2007  12:23p        <DIR>    bin
12/19/2007  10:39a        <DIR>    cygwindl
12/19/2007   2:25a        <DIR>    dev
12/19/2007  12:55p        <DIR>    etc
12/23/2007  11:04a        <DIR>    home
12/19/2007   2:24a        <DIR>    lib
 5/09/2006   6:53a        <DIR>    sbin
 4/08/2007   7:04a        <DIR>    tmp
12/19/2007   2:22a        <DIR>    usr
12/19/2007   2:22a        <DIR>    var
[...]

This only shows up with 'ls [options] /' ie. when listing the Cygwin
root directory, and nowhere else. Any ideas?

Jeff
-- 
"Sorry, my life is still in beta, and nowhere near stable enough for a
release."

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