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Date: Mon, 7 May 2001 11:07:37 -0400
From: Christopher Faylor <cgf AT redhat DOT com>
To: cygapp <cygwin-apps AT cygwin DOT com>
Subject: Re: Forcing SYSTEMROOT (opinions needed)
Message-ID: <20010507110737.E25805@redhat.com>
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In-Reply-To: <20010507114813.V24200@cygbert.vinschen.de>; from cygwin-apps@cygwin.com on Mon, May 07, 2001 at 11:48:13AM +0200

On Mon, May 07, 2001 at 11:48:13AM +0200, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>On Mon, May 07, 2001 at 12:11:05PM +0400, egor duda wrote:
>> Thursday, 03 May, 2001 Christopher Faylor cgf AT redhat DOT com wrote:
>> CF> On Thu, May 03, 2001 at 11:19:26AM +0200, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>> >>What about adding a CYGWIN env setting "[no]pamper" with default
>> >>setting "pamper"? We could add a function to Cygwin which is only
>[...]
>> CF> I'm not sure if you're 100% serious but this but I think that the number
>
>I am. I thought about a way to support more than just one
>of these problems which no programmer thinks of by default
>because they are just wierd Windowisms. Just a thought.
>
>> CF> of CYGWIN environment variables is already uncomfortably high.
>
>Ok, you are right that the number of settings is high but it's
>clear that the need for _some_ sort of settings to influence the
>behaviour of Cygwin is needed, though. And the increasing complexity
>of Cygwin will not lower the need for such settings.
>
>Excuse me but in my opinion it's not reasonable to avoid a possible
>(and perhaps needful) setting just because the already existing
>settings are too numerous from a rather subjective point of view.

No, but I am going to be more and more resistant to the idea of "just"
adding an option to CYGWIN.  Especially when, IMO, it makes no sense
in this case.

>Nevertheless I agree that the setting in an environment variable
>doesn't fit our needs in the future. Shouldn't we discuss creating
>a settings file which may override or supplement the CYGWIN environment
>variable settings?
>
>We could add a CYGWIN setting ;-) like "settings_file:<DOS-PATH>"
>and the file could contain setting=value pairs one per line:
>
>    binmode=yes
>    check_case=relaxed
>    error_init=C:\Cygwin\bin\gdb.exe
>    ntsec=yes
>    smbntsec=no
>    tty=yes

I don't see that that helps anything.

>> CF> This doesn't strike me as a CYGWIN setting.  It's something that a
>> CF> programmer wants to be able to set in his own code.  If I'm calling
>> CF> execl and only want four things in my environment, I should be able
>> CF> to do that without being overridden by a user's environment variable
>> CF> setting.
>
>Shouldn't we add a generalized interface to be able to set or
>unset "settings" in an application?

Possibly, but this isn't germaine to this situation.

Again, if a programmer wants pinpoint control of the environment, they
does not want a user to be able to supersede his wishes.  Or, worse,
they don't want to have to tell every person who runs the program:

"Before you run my super new program bushwah2001, please set the CYGWIN
environment variable to CYGWIN=dont_put_system_variables_in_the_environment"

cgf