Problem with home directory name with spaces

Problem with home directory name with spaces

[Motivus]

Hi. My default installation of Cygwin 1.3.11-3 created
my home directory on my W2K machine as

/home/FirstName MI LastName/

Subsequently, a GNU utility I am invoking to build
binutils is choking when I provide the installation
directory as an argment:

$ export PREFIX=`pwd`/install
...
$ ../binutils-2.11.2/configure --target=$TARGET
--prefix=$PREFIX

The error I get:

"Can only configure for one host and one target at a
time."

When I issue the command:

$ ../binutils-2.11.2/configure --target=$TARGET
--prefix="/home/First M Last/install"

I get the following response:

"Configuring for a i686-pc-cygwin host.
[: M: unknown operand"

where M is my middle initial.

Is it ok to go ahead and rename my Cygwin home
directory to something more UNIX? Can someone refresh
my memory on how I do this when the dir already has
contents?

Motivus

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Problem with home directory name with spaces

[David Starks-Browning]

On Thursday 4 Jul 02, Motivus writes:
> Hi. My default installation of Cygwin 1.3.11-3 created
> my home directory on my W2K machine as
> 
> /home/FirstName MI LastName/

That's bad, lots of things will be broken, as you describe in your
message.

Did you read the FAQ entry:

	"My Windows logon name has a space in it, will this cause
	problems?"

This should provide all the help you need.  If it's still not clear
what to do, reply to this list, so I can amend the FAQ entry
accordingly.

As for what to do with the existing mis-named home directory, just use
Explorer to change the name of C:\cygwin\home\... (depending on where
you installed Cygwin) to whatever you have in /etc/profile and
/etc/passwd.  (Something without spaces, obviously.)

Regards,
David
(Cygwin FAQ maintainer)


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RE: Problem with home directory name with spaces

[Bernard A Badger]

This is an error in the GNU utility that you were using.
(You don't say which one it is.)
Unfortunately, it is a common error to assume that file paths 
will not have spaces in them.  Shell scripts should be written to
a higher degree of defensive programming than you can get away with
when you "know" the path doesn't have unusual characters in it.

The easy answer is to change the name so as to not trigger 
"gotchas" due to lax shell programming.  

To make things better for all, get the script fixed:
First,  export PREFIX="`pwd`/install"
Then find where $PREFIX occurs and make sure it's "$PREFIX", etc.
Check other occurences of $ and `` to see if they're "safe".
Let the author know what was wrong.

1) Detect a fault.
2) Trace fault to error.
3) Fix error.
4) Fix all similar errors.
5) Try to figure out why error occurred in the first place.
6) Change methods to prevent future errors.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cygwin-owner@cygwin.com [mailto:cygwin-owner@cygwin.com]On Behalf
> Of Motivus
> Sent: Thursday, July 04, 2002 12:06 PM
> To: cygwin@cygwin.com
> Subject: Problem with home directory name with spaces
> 
> 
> Hi. My default installation of Cygwin 1.3.11-3 created
> my home directory on my W2K machine as
> 
> /home/FirstName MI LastName/
> 
> Subsequently, a GNU utility I am invoking to build
> binutils is choking when I provide the installation
> directory as an argment:
> 
> $ export PREFIX=`pwd`/install
> ...
> $ ../binutils-2.11.2/configure --target=$TARGET
> --prefix=$PREFIX
> 
> The error I get:
> 
> "Can only configure for one host and one target at a
> time."
> 
> When I issue the command:
> 
> $ ../binutils-2.11.2/configure --target=$TARGET
> --prefix="/home/First M Last/install"
> 
> I get the following response:
> 
> "Configuring for a i686-pc-cygwin host.
> [: M: unknown operand"
> 
> where M is my middle initial.
> 
> Is it ok to go ahead and rename my Cygwin home
> directory to something more UNIX? Can someone refresh
> my memory on how I do this when the dir already has
> contents?
> 
> Motivus
> 
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free
> http://sbc.yahoo.com
> 
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