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Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 02:01:04 -0600
From: Mike Brown <brown AT mrvideo DOT vidiot DOT com>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: Latest cygwin.bat - need one
Message-ID: <20111212080104.GH4028@mrvideo.vidiot.com>
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On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 01:13:02AM -0600, Tim McDaniel wrote:
> On Mon, 12 Dec 2011, Mike Brown wrote:
>> Doing some more digging I found
>> the following posting (via google):
>>
>>    > Does changing 'bash' to '/bin/bash' make a difference?
>>
>>    Answering my own question: yes.
>>
>>    There was a change in execvp()'s behaviour to no longer look up
>>    an executable in the current working directory, wasn't there? I
>>    can't find it in the ChangeLog though.
>>
>> You've got to be kidding.  Why was the looking into CWD removed?
>
> PATH specifies the list of directories to search for executables.
> So if execvp() ever used "." unconditionally regardless of PATH,
> then it violated one of the most long-standing UNIXy rules.

Yes, I know all about the "." security hole and have cleaned many things
that used it.

Even if execvp() was changed to no longer use ".", it should still use the
default path for system executables.  Cygwin does have a default, does it not?
It would seem not, otherwise the absolute path to the shell wouldn't be
required.

Funny thing is that the rxvt program was found.  Ya, I know, Windblows found
it, because it does look in the CWD.  But, once rxvt was started, wouldn't
the default cygwin PATH be brought in so that executables can be found?
Therefore execvp() shouldn't have an issue finding system executables.

So, based upon what actually happens and the user doc, it seems that at
startup, cygwin is deaf, dumb and blind regarding the executables in /bin.
You'd think that cygwin would at least know that when it starts.

Any particular reason why cygwin can't build itself a default PATH for
system executables?

MB
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