Re: The Cygwin User Guide on path names

[Andrey Repin <anrdaemon@yandex.ru>]

Greetings, Linda Walsh!

> Andrey Repin wrote:
>> Greetings, Ken Brown!
>> 
>>> The documentation also says, "The usage of Win32 paths, though possible,
>>> is deprecated...."  I wonder if this should be strengthened to say 
>>> something like, "The usage of Win32 paths, though possible, is strongly 
>>> deprecated and may be removed in a future release of Cygwin."
>> 
>> That would be the day Cygwin die for me.
>> -- 
>> With best regards, Andrey Repin
>> Wednesday, August 24, 2016 12:50:55
>> Sorry for my terrible english...
> ---

> Curious -- but why?  How do you make use of win32 pathnames
> ( "C:\bin" versus "/bin" or "/c/bin" or "/cygdrive/c/bin" )
> depending on how your cygwin is configured).

I make use of win32 paths directly.
diff and grep are the most used tools.

> I'm wondering if maybe there is a misunderstanding?

I don't think so.

> For the most part -- many cygwin apps may not work 
> correctly if given a win32 path in the same place you'd
> put a *nix path due to the backslashes being turned into
> quote sequences.

That's too bad for such poor apps.

> I mean, you can't type:

>> ls C:\bin 
>   (instead of )
>> ls /c/bin

I don't really need LS, though… Not with a file list readily present in front
of me.
Though I sometimes use it to get a listing of current directory in a specific
format into a file or clipboard.

> and have it work, since the first would
> turn into: "ls C:bin" (or if the \b is taken
> as an escape sequence, it rings the bell, so it
> could be translated as "ls C:\008in".  So I'm wondering
> where you know the backslash form would always work and
> wouldn't be mangled "somewhere"...?  (If you see what
> I mean?)

Some apps (like diff/patch or grep) just work.
Other require a workaround (i.e. redirection in case of pngcrush).


-- 
With best regards,
Andrey Repin
Friday, August 26, 2016 05:48:42

Sorry for my terrible english...