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Message-ID: <406C6B13.3070401@scytek.de>
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 14:18:43 -0500
From: Volker Quetschke <quetschke AT scytek DOT de>
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To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Is !C: a valid environment variable?
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Hi!

If you start bash from a command prompt, e.g. by starting the
cygwin.bat you get funny environment variables:

bash-2.05b$ set | grep \!
!C:='C:\cygwin\bin'

When you exit bash and start it again from the same shell you can
even get:

bash-2.05b$ set | grep \!
!C:='C:\cygwin\bin'
!EXITCODE=00000000

But try to echo any of these, or define one with !.

bash-2.05b$ export !HELLO=hello
bash: !HELLO=hello: event not found

I think this special treatment is a bug, what is the prefered solution?

The special treatment is done in environ.cc:

   /* Current directory information is recorded as variables of the
      form "=X:=X:\foo\bar; these must be changed into something legal
      (we could just ignore them but maybe an application will
      eventually want to use them).  */

I'm asking because I have a programm that chokes on !<something>
environment variables, and he workaround I'm using is always starting
the shell via: C:\cygwin\bin\rxvt.exe -e /usr/bin/bash --login -i
from the desktop or logoing into that machine via ssh.

Volker

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