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Message-ID: <38371B02.3677CE72@vinschen.de>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1999 23:04:50 +0100
From: Corinna Vinschen <corinna AT vinschen DOT de>
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To: Chris Faylor <cgf AT cygnus DOT com>
CC: cygwin-developers AT sourceware DOT cygnus DOT com
Subject: Re: cygwin PATH reorg?
References: <19991119122047 DOT B32163 AT cygnus DOT com> <199911192247 DOT QAA07188 AT mercury DOT xraylith DOT wisc DOT edu> <19991119201926 DOT A19418 AT cygnus DOT com>
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Chris Faylor wrote:
> 
> >Geoffrey Noer <noer AT cygnus DOT com> writes:
> >>
> >> This doesn't sound like a good idea to me.  Somewhat hidden cleverness
> >> is really dangerous.  Could better documentation possibly accomplish
> >> the same goals?  Dunno, but I would think that would be preferable.

I agree.

Imagine a typical PATH=...:/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:...

Now when I start some cygwin program, the dll searches for
it's path (say "/bin") and puts it in front of $PATH:

PATH=/bin:...:/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:...

IMHO, this only messes things up. I don't know if other persons
have the same problem but I have two versions of some tools,
one in /bin from the standard installation, the other (mostly
patched versions of the former) in /usr/local/bin and I want to run
the one in /usr/local/bin by default.

I would prefer another solution. More detailed documentation as
mentioned by Geoff is ok but additionally the install process itself
should be more talkative.

As an example the installer of ORACLE explicitly mentions that it
now wants to add X:\ORANT\BIN to the environment variable $PATH
and asks the user if this should be done.
The CYGWIN installer could offer things in a similar way.
For example it could ask if /bin should be installed as the leading
or the trailing path in $PATH.

> ...I was foresaw the plaintive wails
> when a user makes a "minor change" of moving his /bin after setup...

If this user moves /bin to /foo, the dll isn't in the PATH anymore,
so the dll is probably not found and is unable to change the PATH...

If you want to ease this problem I would like to suggest that
the installer asks the user, if the cygwin1.dll should be
installed into the system folder (default) or into the standard
bin directory (the option for the expert).
Maybe, this suggestion is a sacrilege but I couldn't resist ;-)

Bye,
Corinna