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Date: Tue, 01 May 2007 09:59:24 -0400
From: Charles Wilson <cygwin AT cwilson DOT fastmail DOT fm>
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Subject: Re: [Ping Python maintainer]: enhancement request
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Christopher Faylor wrote:
> Before you do this, I have a question.  Why is this important now when you've
> apparently been doing this for many years?  This isn't the only package which
> makes symlinks to executables.  And, since, AFAIK, setup.exe doesn't understand
> hard links it means that you really do have to make a copy.  If you make a copy
> you stand the chance of having python.exe out of sync with the thing that it is
> supposed to be pointing to.
> 
> If it was a general Cygwin policy to always make copies, I could see changing
> Python.  But, again, since it isn't, I don't see why python should be unique.

Because python is a command interpreter, and therefore likely to be 
invoked directly from the windows environment -- unlike, say, egrep. 
Similarly, sh.exe is a copy of bash.exe (and used to be a copy of 
ash.exe) -- and not a symlink.

I think this copy (or hardlink) should be performed by a postinstall 
script -- again, just like sh.exe is updated by bash packages.

--
Chuck

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