programming API to determine whether in "Cygwin environment"

programming API to determine whether in "Cygwin environment"

[Tony Last]

My console program is built for native Windows (thus does not reply on
cygwin1.dll). However, people may want to use it in a Cygwin environment and
if they do I want it to behave in a suitably "Unixy" way. The obvious
example is that when it prints out a pathname (which happens a lot) a Cygwin
user would prefer to see it in Cygwin style, including forward slashes.

So I'm looking for a boolean method which will allow a program to tell
whether it was run from within a Cygwin shell. An environment variable would
be fine as long as it's standard. In fact I see a number of env vars which
would enable an educated guess but am wondering if there's a defined
standard and safe way.

TIA
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Re: programming API to determine whether in "Cygwin environment"

[Christopher Faylor]

On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 08:49:06PM -0700, Tony Last wrote:
>
>My console program is built for native Windows (thus does not reply on
>cygwin1.dll). However, people may want to use it in a Cygwin environment and
>if they do I want it to behave in a suitably "Unixy" way. The obvious
>example is that when it prints out a pathname (which happens a lot) a Cygwin
>user would prefer to see it in Cygwin style, including forward slashes.
>
>So I'm looking for a boolean method which will allow a program to tell
>whether it was run from within a Cygwin shell. An environment variable would
>be fine as long as it's standard. In fact I see a number of env vars which
>would enable an educated guess but am wondering if there's a defined
>standard and safe way.

A PATH containing colons which weren't preceded by just a single
alphabetic character would be a clue but it wouldn't be foolproof.  A
HOME environment variable with no colons and forward slashes would be
another clue.  I don't think there is a foolproof test, though.

cgf

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Re: programming API to determine whether in 'Cygwin environment'

[Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes]

On Thu, July 10, 2008 10:06 pm, Christopher Faylor wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 08:49:06PM -0700, Tony Last wrote:
>> My console program is built for native Windows (thus does not reply on
>> cygwin1.dll).
>>
>> So I'm looking for a boolean method which will allow a program to tell
>> whether it was run from within a Cygwin shell.
>
> A PATH containing colons which weren't preceded by just a single
> alphabetic character would be a clue but it wouldn't be foolproof.  A HOME
> environment variable with no colons and forward slashes would be another
> clue.  I don't think there is a foolproof test, though.

Both HOME and PATH are translated by the time the non-cygwin program
sees them, though??



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Re: programming API to determine whether in 'Cygwin environment'

[Corinna Vinschen]

On Jul 10 22:32, Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes wrote:
> On Thu, July 10, 2008 10:06 pm, Christopher Faylor wrote:
> > On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 08:49:06PM -0700, Tony Last wrote:
> >> My console program is built for native Windows (thus does not reply on
> >> cygwin1.dll).
> >>
> >> So I'm looking for a boolean method which will allow a program to tell
> >> whether it was run from within a Cygwin shell.
> >
> > A PATH containing colons which weren't preceded by just a single
> > alphabetic character would be a clue but it wouldn't be foolproof.  A HOME
> > environment variable with no colons and forward slashes would be another
> > clue.  I don't think there is a foolproof test, though.
> 
> Both HOME and PATH are translated by the time the non-cygwin program
> sees them, though??

$TERM would be set.  That's very unlikely when started from cmd.
$SHELL would be a hint, too.


Corinna

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daemon opens blank dos windows for its subprocess

[Pierre-Philipp Braun]

Hi,

I'm using cygwin to filter my emails with fetchmail and procmail.
Problem is, when fetchmail launches procmail (mda "/usr/bin/procmail -f
- -m $HOME/.procmailrc.file"), it quickly opens and closes freacking
(blank) dos windows !  How to avoid that ?

Thanks
-Pierre-Philipp

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Re: daemon opens blank dos windows for its subprocess

[Jason Tishler]

Pierre-Philipp,

On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 11:21:53AM +0200, Pierre-Philipp Braun wrote:
> I'm using cygwin to filter my emails with fetchmail and procmail.
> Problem is, when fetchmail launches procmail (mda "/usr/bin/procmail
> -f - -m $HOME/.procmailrc.file"), it quickly opens and closes
> freacking (blank) dos windows !  How to avoid that ?

You can workaround the issue by running fetchmail as a service.  See the
following for the details:

    /usr/share/doc/Cygwin/fetchmail-6.3.8.README

Jason

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Re: programming API to determine whether in 'Cygwin environment'

[William Sutton]

All the same, you should probably check to see that whatever variables you 
choose to key off of don't alter the way your program behaves in other 
alternate Windows shells.  A co-worker of mine uses 4NT, which provides 
UNIX command and shell emulation in a native Windows format.  I expect it 
has at least $SHELL and/or $TERM.

FWIW...

William Sutton


On Fri, 11 Jul 2008, Corinna Vinschen wrote:

> On Jul 10 22:32, Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes wrote:
>> On Thu, July 10, 2008 10:06 pm, Christopher Faylor wrote:
>>> On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 08:49:06PM -0700, Tony Last wrote:
>>>> My console program is built for native Windows (thus does not reply on
>>>> cygwin1.dll).
>>>>
>>>> So I'm looking for a boolean method which will allow a program to tell
>>>> whether it was run from within a Cygwin shell.
>>>
>>> A PATH containing colons which weren't preceded by just a single
>>> alphabetic character would be a clue but it wouldn't be foolproof.  A HOME
>>> environment variable with no colons and forward slashes would be another
>>> clue.  I don't think there is a foolproof test, though.
>>
>> Both HOME and PATH are translated by the time the non-cygwin program
>> sees them, though??
>
> $TERM would be set.  That's very unlikely when started from cmd.
> $SHELL would be a hint, too.
>
>
> Corinna
>
> --
> Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
> Cygwin Project Co-Leader          cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
> Red Hat
>
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Re: programming API to determine whether in 'Cygwin environment'

[Christopher Faylor]

On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 10:32:57PM -0700, Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes wrote:
>On Thu, July 10, 2008 10:06 pm, Christopher Faylor wrote:
>> On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 08:49:06PM -0700, Tony Last wrote:
>>> My console program is built for native Windows (thus does not reply on
>>> cygwin1.dll).
>>>
>>> So I'm looking for a boolean method which will allow a program to tell
>>> whether it was run from within a Cygwin shell.
>>
>> A PATH containing colons which weren't preceded by just a single
>> alphabetic character would be a clue but it wouldn't be foolproof.  A HOME
>> environment variable with no colons and forward slashes would be another
>> clue.  I don't think there is a foolproof test, though.
>
>Both HOME and PATH are translated by the time the non-cygwin program
>sees them, though??

Oops.  Yes.  What was I thinking?  Sorry for the misinformation and thanks
for the correction.

Nevermind.

cgf

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Re: programming API to determine whether in 'Cygwin environment'

[Christopher Faylor]

On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 08:34:30AM -0400, William Sutton wrote:
>All the same, you should probably check to see that whatever variables
>you choose to key off of don't alter the way your program behaves in
>other alternate Windows shells.  A co-worker of mine uses 4NT, which
>provides UNIX command and shell emulation in a native Windows format.
>I expect it has at least $SHELL and/or $TERM.

I've been using 4NT for years.  I love it.

My version of 4NT doesn't set SHELL or TERM.

cgf

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Re: daemon opens blank dos windows for its subprocess

[Pierre-Philipp Braun]

Fetchmail now runs as a service.  It's solved.
Just wondering : what happends with its stderr if there are some errors?
(with or without the --nodetach)

Besides, what client are you using ?  I used Pine a lot but I prefer
graphical clients at the end.  So I'm using xinetd/uw-imapd.

Regards
-Pierre-Philipp

Quoting Jason Tishler (11/07/2008 14:14),
> Pierre-Philipp,
> 
> On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 11:21:53AM +0200, Pierre-Philipp Braun wrote:
>> I'm using cygwin to filter my emails with fetchmail and procmail.
>> Problem is, when fetchmail launches procmail (mda "/usr/bin/procmail
>> -f - -m $HOME/.procmailrc.file"), it quickly opens and closes
>> freacking (blank) dos windows !  How to avoid that ?
> 
> You can workaround the issue by running fetchmail as a service.  See the
> following for the details:
> 
>     /usr/share/doc/Cygwin/fetchmail-6.3.8.README
> 
> Jason
> 

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Re: programming API to determine whether in "Cygwin environment"

[Tony Last]

What about the following EVs which a quick "env" shows: "MAKE_MODE", "SHLVL",
and "!C:"? I assume SHLVL is an artifact of bash and only present if bash is
an ancestor? I have no idea who sets MAKE_MODE. And "!C:" is a very strange
one but presumably is exported by Cygwin?
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RE: programming API to determine whether in "Cygwin environment"

[Karr, David]

The "ant" shell script checks to see if "`uname`" contains the string
"CYGWIN". 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cygwin-owner@cygwin.com 
> [mailto:cygwin-owner@cygwin.com] On Behalf Of Tony Last
> Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2008 8:49 PM
> To: cygwin@cygwin.com
> Subject: programming API to determine whether in "Cygwin environment"
> 
> 
> My console program is built for native Windows (thus does not 
> reply on cygwin1.dll). However, people may want to use it in 
> a Cygwin environment and if they do I want it to behave in a 
> suitably "Unixy" way. The obvious example is that when it 
> prints out a pathname (which happens a lot) a Cygwin user 
> would prefer to see it in Cygwin style, including forward slashes.
> 
> So I'm looking for a boolean method which will allow a 
> program to tell whether it was run from within a Cygwin 
> shell. An environment variable would be fine as long as it's 
> standard. In fact I see a number of env vars which would 
> enable an educated guess but am wondering if there's a 
> defined standard and safe way.
> 
> TIA
> --
> View this message in context: 
> http://www.nabble.com/programming-API-to-determine-whether-in-
%22Cygwin-environment%22-tp18395872p18395872.html
> Sent from the Cygwin list mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> 
> 
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> 

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RE: programming API to determine whether in "Cygwin environment"

[Dave Korn]

Tony Last wrote on 11 July 2008 16:24:

>  I have no idea who sets MAKE_MODE. 

  Probably you did!  It used to mean something to make a long time ago, but
was always a user-controlled variable even then.

    cheers,
      DaveK
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Re: programming API to determine whether in "Cygwin environment"

[Larry Hall (Cygwin)]

Dave Korn wrote:
> Tony Last wrote on 11 July 2008 16:24:
> 
>>  I have no idea who sets MAKE_MODE. 
> 
>   Probably you did!  It used to mean something to make a long time ago, but
> was always a user-controlled variable even then.


Or it's possible he (and others) just picked it up from
'/etc/defaults/etc/profile' where it is set.


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_____________________________________________________________________

A: Yes.
 > Q: Are you sure?
 >> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
 >>> Q: Why is top posting annoying in email?

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Re: programming API to determine whether in "Cygwin environment"

[Tony Last]

Dave Korn wrote:
> Tony Last wrote on 11 July 2008 16:24:
> 
>>  I have no idea who sets MAKE_MODE. 
> 
>   Probably you did!  It used to mean something to make a long time ago,
> but
> was always a user-controlled variable even then.


Or it's possible he (and others) just picked it up from
'/etc/defaults/etc/profile' where it is set.

Yes, that.
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RE: programming API to determine whether in "Cygwin environment"

[Dave Korn]

Karr, David wrote on 11 July 2008 16:34:

> The "ant" shell script checks to see if "`uname`" contains the string
> "CYGWIN".

  Won't help here:

>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: cygwin-owner On Behalf Of Tony Last
>> Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2008 8:49 PM

>> So I'm looking for a boolean method which will allow a
>> program to tell whether it was run from within a Cygwin
>> shell. 

  Invoking uname will return the same output regardless if you launch it
from bash or cmd.exe, so can't be used to tell the two apart.


  Frankly the best method is to use standard win32 functions to identify
your parent process, then either a) check if the name contains the substring
"sh.exe", or b) check if cygwin1.dll is mapped into the parent's address
space, depending on how robust against really unlikely false positives you
wanted to be.

    cheers,
      DaveK
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Re: programming API to determine whether in "Cygwin environment"

[Christopher Faylor]

On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 08:34:17AM -0700, Karr, David wrote:
>The "ant" shell script checks to see if "`uname`" contains the string
>"CYGWIN". 

That just means that you have a Cygwin uname in your path.  It doesn't
mean you're necessarily running in a Cygwin "environment".  I thought the
intent was to print c:\foo at the CMD prompt and /cygdrive/c/foo when
running under some shell.

So, really the best test for that is the SHELL environment variable
containing just '/' and no '\' or ':'.  The Cygwin DLL doesn't mess with
that environment variable.

cgf

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Re: daemon opens blank dos windows for its subprocess

[Jason Tishler]

Pierre-Philipp,

On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 03:37:59PM +0200, Pierre-Philipp Braun wrote:
> Fetchmail now runs as a service.  It's solved.
> Just wondering : what happends with its stderr if there are some
> errors?  (with or without the --nodetach)

fetchmail can be configured to log to a file.  For example:

    set logfile /var/log/fetchmail.log

See the fetchmail man page for more details.

> Besides, what client are you using ?  I used Pine a lot but I prefer
> graphical clients at the end.  So I'm using xinetd/uw-imapd.

I use mutt.

Jason

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Re: programming API to determine whether in 'Cygwin environment'

[Thorsten Kampe]

* William Sutton (Fri, 11 Jul 2008 08:34:30 -0400 (EDT))
> All the same, you should probably check to see that whatever variables you 
> choose to key off of don't alter the way your program behaves in other 
> alternate Windows shells.  A co-worker of mine uses 4NT, which provides 
> UNIX command and shell emulation in a native Windows format.  I expect it 
> has at least $SHELL and/or $TERM.

4NT is now called TakeCommand and the shell "Take Command Console" 
(TCC). It does not set these variables.

As as sidenote TCC/LE is now free as in free of charge.

Thorsten


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Re: daemon opens blank dos windows for its subprocess

[Thorsten Kampe]

* Pierre-Philipp Braun (Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:21:53 +0200)
> 
> I'm using cygwin to filter my emails with fetchmail and procmail.
> Problem is, when fetchmail launches procmail (mda "/usr/bin/procmail -f
> - -m $HOME/.procmailrc.file"), it quickly opens and closes freacking
> (blank) dos windows !  How to avoid that ?

Please don't highjack threads. If you ask a new question create a new 
email instead of replying. That's basic knowledge and courtesy.

Thorsten


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