which for cygwin 1.7

which for cygwin 1.7

[David Rothenberger]

I've been looking at rebuilding which for cygwin 1.7. I think there are 
a lot of problems with the current code. It uses static buffers of 
PATH_MAX all over the place, some of which are passed to getcwd().

My C programming skills are a bit rusty, but I can take a stab at fixing 
it. I'd appreciate it if someone else could take a quick look and let me 
know whether it's worth the effort or not.

I'm pretty sure that using a PATH_MAX sized buffer for getcwd() is a 
problem. These buffers are also used to hold output from getenv(). I'm 
not sure if that will be a problem or not.

I guess the alternative is to use a different which package. The one 
from Debian uses a shell script and does not have all the features of 
the current which.

Any suggestions would be appreciated, including if or how to patch the 
current which and alternative which packages to investigate.

-- 
David Rothenberger  ----  daveroth@acm.org

Hlade's Law:
         If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person --
         they will find an easier way to do it.

Re: which for cygwin 1.7

[Corinna Vinschen]

On Dec 12 14:46, David Rothenberger wrote:
> I've been looking at rebuilding which for cygwin 1.7. I think there are a 
> lot of problems with the current code. It uses static buffers of PATH_MAX 
> all over the place, some of which are passed to getcwd().

For a start that would be fine.  By rebuilding you get static buffers
of the new PATH_MAX size.  As long as which checks if the path length
doesn't exceed the buffer size, it should be safe to use.  It wouldn't
work for paths > 4K, but that's a far way off.  Just check if it uses
strlen() > PATH_MAX or strncpy(a,b,PATH_MAX) sort of expressions.


Corinna

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