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From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT gnu DOT org>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
In-reply-to: <Pine.GSO.4.63.0608161543520.14156@access1.cims.nyu.edu> (message 	from Igor Peshansky on Wed, 16 Aug 2006 15:52:59 -0400 (EDT))
Subject: Re: change in behavior of make from 3.80 to 3.81
Reply-to: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT gnu DOT org>
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Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 05:05:08 -0400
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> Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 15:52:59 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Igor Peshansky <pechtcha AT cs DOT nyu DOT edu>
> cc: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
> 
> Alternatively, you can try to implement a $(cygpath ...) function in make
> and submit *that* to the upstream maintainers.

FWIW, I don't think such a function is a good idea, and if it is
proposed on the Make mailing list, I will probably object to it.

The reason is that adding such a function goes against portability of
Makefiles across different ports of Make, and also adds a too-tight
coupling between Make and the Cygwin file-name handling (i.e., every
change in how /cygdrive/ is handled in Cygwin will require a
corresponding change in Make).  While these disadvantages are not a
catastrophe, I don't see a need to punish Make by them when a better
and easier solution is available (i.e. use the existing HAVE_DOS_PATHS
code, perhaps with some Cygwin-specific changes).  Contrary to what
some people said in this thread, I don't see any problems that could
hamper the Cygwin build of Make if it supported drive letters, since
Windows doesn't allow colons anywhere else in file names anyway.  Of
course, the best way of making sure no problems exist is to test the
patched version in the Cygwin environment.

> Although, with make using spaces to separate everything, I still don't see
> how this would work with absolute win32 paths in the general case.

Whatever problems you have in mind, they afflict the Posix platforms
as well.  The Windows ports (including the Cygwin port) do not need to
be better than the original, only not worse ;-)

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