Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:15:17 -0400
From: Christopher Faylor <cgf-use-the-mailinglist-please AT cygwin DOT com>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: allow executing a path in backslash notation
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On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 12:05:20PM -0600, Eric Blake wrote:
>On 03/16/2010 09:07 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>>I checked this situation in cmd.exe, and it is not capable of using
>>paths relativ to %Path%.  In other words, if %Path% contains a path
>>c:\foo and you have two files C:\foo\baz.exe and C:\foo\bar\baz.exe,
>>then calling "baz" works, but calling "bar\baz" fails.  OTOH, the
>>SearchPath function does it right.
>
>POSIX says PATH searches are only performed on single components; they
>are skipped if the argument contains /.  That is:
>
>PATH=/b c/d
>
>will NOT execute /b/c/d (unless you happen to be in /b at the time);
>rather it MUST execute ./c/d or fail altogether.  Another term for this
>(at least, in the bash sources) is the notion of an anchored search -
>even though the requested name is relative, the fact that it contains a
>/ means it does not trigger a PATH search, but is anchored in the
>current directory.
>
>Therefore, I see no reason why we shouldn't behave the same for \,
>since we are treating it as a directory separator.  That is, if you
>have both c:\foo\baz.exe and c:\foo\bar\baz.exe, then calling bar\baz
>should NOT care whether c:\foo is in %Path%, but should only work if
>.\bar\baz exists.

I agree 100%.  Luckily, I don't think the OP was asking for this anyway.

cgf

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