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Subject: Re: Sv: g++ and c++17 filesystem
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From: Eliot Moss <moss@cs.umass.edu>
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Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2020 11:31:21 -0500
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On 11/18/2020 11:24 AM, René Berber via Cygwin wrote:

> Cygwin handles the file system with no problem, but using Posix-like notation, not Windows-like.  
> End of story.

And I'll add, this is by design: Cygwin's goal is to provide a programming (and command line) 
environment as much like Posix as reasonably possible.

It does include some tools to help interface with Windows more explicitly, such as cygpath and 
cygstart.  I have defined a bash alias ppt that refers to a bach function powerpnt, defined thusly:

powerpnt ()
{
     local ARG;
     [ -n "$1" ] && {
         ARG="$(cygpath -wa "$1")";
         shift
     };
     [ -n "$VERBOSE" ] && {
         echo powerpnt ${ARG:+"${ARG}"} "$@"
     };
     command powerpnt ${ARG:+"${ARG}"} "$@" &
}

This takes the first argument and converts it from Posix to Windows form, for passing to the 
powerpnt binary.  And then I have a file system link so that "command powerpnt" gets to the 
installed Windows binary C:\Program Files.

But this is by far the exception as opposed to the rule in how I use Cygwin.

In hope that this give you some perspective and insight as to what Cygwin is and why.

Best wishes - Eliot Moss