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Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 21:34:39 -0500
To: jamshid AT io DOT com, cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
From: Larry Hall <cygwin-lh AT cygwin DOT com>
Subject: RE: What kind of executable is zcat? Crashes from cmd.exe
In-Reply-To: <52541.12.161.72.17.1076714859.squirrel@webmail.io.com>
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At 06:27 PM 2/13/2004, jamshid AT io DOT com you wrote:
>Larry Hall writes:
>>Bakken, Luke writes:
>>>$ ls -l zcat*
>>>lrwxrwxrwx    1 lukeb    Users          19 Sep 21 16:29 zcat.exe ->
>>>gzip.exe
>>>$ rm zcat.exe
>>>$ ln gzip.exe zcat.exe
>
>Thanks, Luke, now I can use zcat from the Windows command line.
>
>>Sure, that's another option but one that eats up disk space if your
>>partition isn't formatted for NTFS.  Replacing "ln" with "ln -s" in your
>>examples above will get you "Windows shortcuts" which you can use at the
>>command prompt directly, so long as you don't mind typing ".lnk" at the
>>end of each linked executable.  This assumes you haven't added
>>"nowinsymlinks" to your CYGWIN environment variable of course.  This
>>approach will save the disk space on non-NTFS partitions.
>
>I really think it's worth a few bytes of disk space (even then only on
>non-NTFS partitions) to have zcat work out of the box in the Windows
>Command Prompt.


OK, if you can get everyone that uses Cygwin on non-NTFS partitions to 
agree to have all the currently linked programs become copies instead, 
let the list know.  ;-)


>That definitely seems like a much better option to having zcat crash or
>having to type "zcat.lnk", right? 


Depends on your point of view, I guess.  The Cygwin lot can be a fickle 
bunch.  Actually, what's been discussed before is to move in the direction
of Windows shortcuts, which you poo-poo above too.


>Should I file an enhancement request?


Nah.  It's a known issue so you'd just be covering the same ground again.
Clearly, it's not a high-priority for anyone since the issue has been 
known for a while.  If you really are interested in seeing some kind of
change here, a patch to setup might stir-up some action (or further 
discussion).  


--
Larry Hall                              http://www.rfk.com
RFK Partners, Inc.                      (508) 893-9779 - RFK Office
838 Washington Street                   (508) 893-9889 - FAX
Holliston, MA 01746                     


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