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Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2010 16:07:21 +0200
From: Corinna Vinschen <corinna-cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: .exe magic reloaded 2
Message-ID: <20100915140721.GS15121@calimero.vinschen.de>
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On Sep 15 15:50, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> On Sep 15 15:38, Al wrote:
> > >
> > > True.  In theory we would have to remove .exe and .lnk suffixes from
> > > directory listings as well, but that was never the case in Cygwin.
> > >
> > >
> > 
> > That's the way it has always been... isn't a strong argument in development.
> 
> It wasn't an argument, it was just a description of the state.
> 
> > I guess there are some other reasons to do it this way. If not one
> > should really consider to improve it to make Cygwin still more Unix
> > compatible.
> 
> I'd love to drop the .exe suffix from readdir(), I'm just not sure what
> unwelcome side-effects we create.

For instance, this one:  Either we always remove the .exe suffix from
a file, or we have to check for each file with a .exe suffix, whether
it's executable or not.

In the first case, you get something like this:

  $ echo foo > bar.exe
  $ ls bar*
  bar
  $

Fortunately:

  $ ls bar.exe
  bar.exe

However, dependent of the intelligence of a script or application, the
suddenly missing suffix could result in trouble.

In the second case, the extra test for executability would be a big
performance hit, especially if you call `ls /usr/bin'.  And you know how
we already have a lot of users kicking our asses for Cygwin's
performance.

So, whatever we do will result in problems for another group of users.


Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Project Co-Leader          cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Red Hat

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