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Date: Tue, 10 May 2011 18:16:54 -0400
From: Christopher Faylor <cgf-use-the-mailinglist-please AT cygwin DOT com>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: Who's using "CYGWIN=tty" and why?
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On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 06:11:35PM -0400, Buchbinder, Barry (NIH/NIAID) [E] wrote:
>Christopher Faylor sent the following at Tuesday, May 10, 2011 1:19 PM
>>If we changed the /dev/console to /dev/consN (where N is a unique number
>>for each console window) would that address your use case?
>
>Yes, it works for me if there would be a reasonably small (preferably
>single digit) number in the output of tty or ps.

Yep.  That is the plan.

>>You would not be able to do something like echo foo >/dev/cons4 and have
>>foo be echoed another console window though.
>
>Since I haven't been on a real Unix/POSIX machine since the late '80s,
>I'd forgotten about that.  Now you made me want to DO it!  :-)

Heh.  I knew I shouldn't have mentioned it.

This was actually one of the first things that impressed me about Cygwin
when I first started using it.  Of course, when I first started it only
worked about half the time, but still...

The way I'm implementing this you should be able if /dev/consN is
actually associated with a console but you won't be able to do anything
other than verify existence.

>>Eliminating the special case of tty handling
>>would simplify the cygwin pty layer, shrink the size of the DLL, and
>>generally make Cygwin a little easier to maintain.
>
>Even if you don't accommodate me, that's OK, if your lives will be
>easier.  As I wrote, if I find that I really miss tty identification,
>I can learn to use mintty.  (Or maybe I should just switch - but not
>today.)

I actually have the /dev/cons<small number> about 3/4 finished.

If we do decide to get rid of CYGWIN=tty then /dev/cons may become
/dev/tty<small number> again and ptys will become /dev/pty<small number>.

cgf

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