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Date: Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:59:41 -0500
From: Ken Brown <kbrown AT cornell DOT edu>
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To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: Environment variable documentation
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On 12/1/2009 4:08 PM, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> On Dec  1 19:24, John Morrison wrote:
>> On Tue, December 1, 2009 4:32 pm, Ken Brown wrote:
>>> OK, my patch is attached.  It anticipates the change to the default
>>> .bashrc file that we've been discussing in the thread cited above.
>> Hi Ken,
>>
>> While I think it's a good idea to point out that they are (will be) unset
>> in the users .bashrc I'm not sure it's a good idea to tell people where
>> the default (/etc/defaults/etc/skel/.bashrc) is, since this will be
>> overwritten by the base package.  If people want to maintain their own set
>> of changes which is used in future that the package does not overwrite
>> /etc/skel/.bashrc is what they should edit.  However, since the skel files
>> are only copied *once* ~/.bashrc should be the first point of call.
>>
>> Hope that makes sense!
> 
> Good point.

I agree.  A revised patch is attached.

Ken

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--- setup2.sgml.orig	2009-12-01 10:37:00.156250000 -0500
+++ setup2.sgml	2009-12-01 16:57:26.093750000 -0500
@@ -4,7 +4,9 @@
 You may wish to specify settings of several important environment
 variables that affect Cygwin's operation.  Some of these settings need
 to be in effect prior to launching the initial Cygwin session (before
-starting your bash shell, for instance), and are, consequentially, best
+starting your bash shell, for instance).  They should therefore be set
+in the Windows environment; all Windows environment variables are
+imported when Cygwin starts.  Such settings can be
 placed in a .bat file.  An initial file is named Cygwin.bat and is created
 in the Cygwin root directory that you specified during setup.  Note that
 the "Cygwin" option of the Start Menu points to Cygwin.bat.  Edit
@@ -66,6 +68,34 @@
 <function>dlopen ()</function> call and do not need this variable.
 </para>
 
+<para>
+In addition to <envar>PATH</envar>, <envar>HOME</envar>,
+and <envar>LD_LIBRARY_PATH</envar>, there are three other environment
+variables which, if they exist in the Windows environment, are
+converted to UNIX format: <envar>TMPDIR</envar>, <envar>TMP</envar>,
+and <envar>TEMP</envar>.  The first is not set by default in the
+Windows environment but the other two are, and they point to the
+default Windows temporary directory.  If set, these variables will be
+used by some Cygwin applications, possibly with unexpected results.
+You may therefore want to unset them by adding the following two lines
+to your <filename>.bashrc</filename> file:
+
+<screen>
+unset TMP
+unset TEMP
+</screen>
+
+This is done in the default <filename>.bashrc</filename> file.
+Alternatively, you could set <envar>TMP</envar>
+and <envar>TEMP</envar> to point to <filename>/tmp</filename> or to
+any other temporary directory of your choice.  For example:
+
+<screen>
+export TMP=/tmp
+export TEMP=/tmp
+</screen>
+</para>
+
 </sect1>
 
 <sect1 id="setup-maxmem"><title>Changing Cygwin's Maximum Memory</title>


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