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Subject: RE: paths like //usr/local
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Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2002 16:54:35 -0400
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From: "Scott Prive" <Scott DOT Prive AT storigen DOT com>
To: "Jan Nieuwenhuizen" <janneke AT gnu DOT org>, <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
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FYI: I actually *had* hostnames like "var", "tmp" and so on at one time... :-)


Cygwin maps UNIX/POSIX behavior on top of NT, but NT was designed to be compatible with DOS's *broken* conventions, so NT is half-broken.

Any kind of parsing for mounts like you suggest would probably incur a performance hit, generate limitations, and cause breakage everywhere. 

The escaping can be annoying but it's livable IMO. I suggest not to use //, but to use the "proper" path convention -- and escape accordingly. This is more keystrokes and more to remember, but it seems bugfree and 100% consistent. I shudder at the thought of `rm -rf /path` going to an "interpreted" mount point.

Example: 

Desired path: \\server\share

Bash: \\\\server\\share

Perl - going THROUGH bash, using system():
\\\\\\\\server\\\\share 

Slightly off topic, but standard Bash *does* support hostname completion. You have to configure it -- see standard BASH2 documentation online. I have no idea how well it works with Cygwin and with UNC pathing, but it works on UNIX with automount and ssh.

If nothing, it could be extended by someone for UNC.

-Scott 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jan Nieuwenhuizen [mailto:janneke AT gnu DOT org]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 15, 2002 4:01 PM
> To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
> Subject: Re: paths like //usr/local
> 
> 
> Christopher Faylor <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com> writes:
> 
> > cygwin allows the user to specify paths like: c:\foo\bar 
> and c:/foo/bar.
> > Similarly, it allows //foo/bar and \\foo\bar .
> 
> > If that doesn't satisfy you then you can go back to the 
> "Because we're mean"
> > argument.
> 
> I've been hurt by this too, and it makes me think.  It would be even
> more satisfactory if some configurable list of 'hosts' would map to
> //localhost/.  Hosts with names such as \\bin, \\etc, \\tmp,
> \\usr or \\var come to mind.
> 
> Now if such a thing could be implemented without some horrible kludge,
> would that be nice?
> 
> Jan.
> 
> -- 
> Jan Nieuwenhuizen <janneke AT gnu DOT org> | GNU LilyPond - The 
> music typesetter
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~jantien       | http://www.lilypond.org
> 
> 
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