Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 09:38:59 +0200
From: Eric Thomas <ethomas AT claranet DOT fr>
Subject: program fails to find it's DLL
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
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Hi all,

I've got an issue here with some command line programs, all from the 
same editor.

Commands are issued from bash 3.0.16-14 / cygwin 1.5.18-1 on a
computer running W2K SP4.
Everything was ok until someone introduced an invalid path in the 
default PATH that bash inherits from cmd.exe .
Let's say that PATH is made of 3 parts:
A : valid path
B : invalid path ("invalid" means that it raise my issue)
C : valid path

Since, those programs raise a pop-up to complain that some DLL is
missing in "path displayed".
But "path displayed" is incomplete. In fact "path displayed" is only the
A part.
The missing DLL belongs to one dir of the C part.
So, this invalid value prevents the program to look further in the last
part of PATH.

Well, one would think that the problem is only on the program's side
(and maybe it is). But there are other arguments to look at too.

Only some kind of path format can raise the issue.
Let's say that
/cygdrive/c/a   is a directory
/cygdrive/c/b   is a regular file
/cygdrive/c/c   does not exist

Issue raised with
/cygdrive/c/b/
/cygdrive/c/b/anyfilename_or_dirname

It will also happen with a true invalid path like this one: 
/cygdrive/sure_I_am_an_invalid_path

But the following won't:
/cygdrive/c/a
/cygdrive/c/b
/cygdrive/c/c
everything that doesn't start with /cygdrive

Facts:
- I didn't managed to reproduce the problem when issuing the command
directly from a cmd.exe, excepted by setting PATH to "" of course. But
an invalid path placed in PATH does not hurt.
- I didn't managed to reproduce the problem with any other program that
would requiere some DLL (excel for instance)

So it makes me think that It could be related to cygwin in some way,
even if it occurs only with those programs because they probably behave
differently from other programs...

I've done a fresh installation of cygwin (bash 3.1-6 / cygwin 1.5.21-2)
on another computer.
Some changes with this one:
- no more pop-up, but the program still fails to run due to its missing
DLL
- now "/regular_file/" will also raise the problem (at least this point
is consistent now)

Could those programs explicitly load some DLL after they start-up ? and
rely on PATH to do it on purpuse ?
If so, they manage to deal with invalid path when running from cmd.exe.
Something must be different when run from bash.

Just in case you wonder: same behaviour with ash.

Any comment welcome and appreciated

Regards,
Eric


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