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Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:28:25 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Ziser, Jesse" <xezlec AT yahoo DOT com>
Subject: Re: syntax for Cygwin bash invoking Win apps
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More strange behavior when running Cygwin apps from a Windows prompt.  The quoting seems not to follow any rules that I can manage to track down:

The following are normal and expected, given that we discovered that all Cygwin apps do some kind of as-yet-undefined partial bash preprocessing on their arguments:

C:\> d:\cygwin\bin\echo \
\

C:\> d:\cygwin\bin\echo \\
\\

C:\> d:\cygwin\bin\echo 'a'
a

C:\> d:\cygwin\bin\echo '\a'
\a

The following don't seem to make any sense, even given that Cygwin apps do some kind of preprocessing on their arguments:

C:\> d:\cygwin\bin\echo '\'
'

C:\> d:\cygwin\bin\echo '\\'
\

C:\> d:\cygwin\bin\echo '\\\n'
[*** 15-second pause, every time! ***]
\\n

I have now given up on directly invoking Cygwin apps from Windows.  It seems it just can't be done with any consistency at all.  Instead, I'm going to try generating temporary shell scripts and executing them another way.  However, since the above may reveal a bug (especially the 15-second pause), I thought I should mention it to you folks.

Thanks,
Jesse



      

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