X-Recipient: archive-cygwin AT delorie DOT com
X-SWARE-Spam-Status: No, hits=-1.6 required=5.0 	tests=AWL,BAYES_00,SARE_MSGID_LONG40,SPF_PASS
X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org
MIME-Version: 1.0
In-Reply-To: <4AC89364.9080301@freesbee.fr>
References: <4AC89364 DOT 9080301 AT freesbee DOT fr>
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2009 09:12:09 +1300
Message-ID: <db95995b0910041312g3719caech1617a68167cdb0a1@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: symlinks show .exe
From: David Antliff <david DOT antliff AT gmail DOT com>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
X-IsSubscribed: yes
Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com; run by ezmlm
Precedence: bulk
List-Id: <cygwin.cygwin.com>
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:cygwin-unsubscribe-archive-cygwin=delorie DOT com AT cygwin DOT com>
List-Subscribe: <mailto:cygwin-subscribe AT cygwin DOT com>
List-Archive: <http://sourceware.org/ml/cygwin/>
List-Post: <mailto:cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
List-Help: <mailto:cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com>, <http://sourceware.org/ml/#faqs>
Sender: cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com
Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin AT cygwin DOT com

2009/10/5 Vincent Rivi=E8re <vincent DOT riviere AT freesbee DOT fr>:
> Do you agree this is a bug and it should be fixed ?

I've got nothing to do with the code, but I am an interested observer.

In my experience, it should be possible to create symlinks to any
arbitrary target, regardless of whether it actually exists or not.
Therefore, if I create a symlink to "/bin/ls" then I'd expect that to
be the content of the symlink - the automatic behaviour of rewriting
it to "/bin/ls.exe" is unexpected and therefore probably incorrect
according to some "standard" somewhere.

Perhaps the 'shortcut' of omitting the .exe extension is getting in
the way here - it's preventing unambiguous identification of the
symlink target.

But maybe I misunderstand the scope of symlinks and something
somewhere says the system can rewrite them to point at valid targets
if it wishes?

-- David.

--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple