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Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 10:19:57 +0200
From: Corinna Vinschen <corinna-cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: mkcramfs porting done - device file issues....
Message-ID: <20020529101957.I30892@cygbert.vinschen.de>
Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
References: <Pine DOT GSO DOT 4 DOT 30L DOT 0205281831460 DOT 3660-100000 AT cathedral-seven DOT mit DOT edu> <GCEKJAPMFCCHLBOOCMIBAEOBCLAA DOT for_spam AT gmx DOT de> <20020529031222 DOT GA22630 AT redhat DOT com>
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On Tue, May 28, 2002 at 11:12:22PM -0400, Christopher Faylor wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 29, 2002 at 03:52:27AM +0200, gmx wrote:
> >Under Linux i have devices under /dev which possibly point to 'nirvana'
> >(because there is no appropriate kernel feature/mod).  Why should't i
> >have such "dummy-dev`s" under cygwin ?
> 
> Cygwin doesn't have major and minor device numbers.

That's not quite correct.

Cygwin is using major and minor device numbers but there's nothing
like a device node in the filesystem.  The handling of major and
minor device numbers is purely internally.  What you *can* do is,
create a /dev directory and create (in Windows Explorer) files in
it which are named exactly as the devices known to Cygwin.  E. g.
if you created a file called `st0' - the name of the first tape
device in the system - then you can call `ls -l /dev' and you will
see:

  total 0
  crw-rw-rw-    1 root     root      18,   0 May 29 10:05 st0

The cause is that the handling of devices overrides the path
handling.  But that's *only* possible for device names known
to Cygwin.

> >Isn't this "feature" implemented yet and can it be easily implemented ?
> 
> It isn't implemented and it would be difficult to implement.  Sorry.

We discussed to implement something like loadable device drivers
already two years ago and which could be implemented using device
nodes.  It's not implemented though...  no time, no volunteers.

What would be possible is to add only the device nodes.  They could
be implemented like symlinks but I'm reluctant to add these to
Cygwin as long as there's no mechanism to actually use them.

Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Developer                                mailto:cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Red Hat, Inc.

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