colons in Cygwin (was Re: make-3.81-3 (ITA??))

colons in Cygwin (was Re: make-3.81-3 (ITA??))

[Rob Walker]

The below message was originally, inappropriately sent to cygwin-apps. 
Although cgf has no interest in spending his time on answering my 
questions, I thought I'd solicit the opinions of any package maintainer 
who is interested.

Thanks,
Rob

==== original message begins =======

I didn't mean for anyone (especially the package maintainer) to infer
that make wasn't being actively supported.  My apologies for any
misunderstanding.

I'm very interested in your opinions on colons in paths.  I'd prefer to
hear directly what they are, to avoid any misunderstanding that might
arise from me trying to glean them from the archives.

Questions I have in particular:
1. what are your thoughts on POSIX support for colons in paths?
2. what are your thoughts on Cygwin's existing support for DOS paths?

Thanks in advance.

-Rob

Christopher Faylor wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 04:51:02PM -0700, Rob Walker wrote:
>
>> I'd like to get make updated to accept paths with colons on Cygwin.  The
>> patch that enables this behavior has been available and in fairly wide use
>> for almost 2 years.
>>
>> I've read http://cygwin.com/setup.html.  I've followed the instructions up
>> to "Updating a Package", which seems to imply that only package owners can
>> update a package.
>>
>> How does a non-package owner go about updating a package?  Who's the
>> current make package owner?  Is make available for adoption?
>>
>
> The last update to make was in January of this year so it is obviously
> being actively supported.
>
> Make is supported by me and I've made my opinions on the matter of
> colons clear.  When there is a new release of make, I'll make a new
> cygwin release available.  If the new release handles colons
> transparently I won't actively break the patch but it won't be actively
> supported either, i.e., I won't respond to bug reports on it.
>
> This isn't really open for discussion so please don't send an
> impassioned plea.  It isn't appropriate for this list and it has been
> discussed to death on the Cygwin list.
>
> cgf
>



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Re: colons in Cygwin (was Re: make-3.81-3 (ITA??))

[Reini Urban]

Rob Walker schrieb:
> I didn't mean for anyone (especially the package maintainer) to infer
> that make wasn't being actively supported.  My apologies for any
> misunderstanding.
> 
> I'm very interested in your opinions on colons in paths.  I'd prefer to
> hear directly what they are, to avoid any misunderstanding that might
> arise from me trying to glean them from the archives.
> 
> Questions I have in particular:
> 1. what are your thoughts on POSIX support for colons in paths?

Colons in filenames are fine and will be supported with cygwin-1.7.
But c:/ it will not map to the root of some c drive, it will map to the 
subdir "c:"
For now we had to use managed mounts for such names, soon we will be 
able to see readable names.

> 2. what are your thoughts on Cygwin's existing support for DOS paths?

Why should we? For mingw builds use MSYS, for cygwin use cygwin.
Don't mix what does not fit together.
-- 
Reini Urban
http://phpwiki.org/  http://murbreak.at/

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Re: colons in Cygwin (was Re: make-3.81-3 (ITA??))

[Rob Walker]

Reini Urban wrote:
> Rob Walker schrieb:
>   
>> I didn't mean for anyone (especially the package maintainer) to infer
>> that make wasn't being actively supported.  My apologies for any
>> misunderstanding.
>>
>> I'm very interested in your opinions on colons in paths.  I'd prefer to
>> hear directly what they are, to avoid any misunderstanding that might
>> arise from me trying to glean them from the archives.
>>
>> Questions I have in particular:
>> 1. what are your thoughts on POSIX support for colons in paths?
>>     
>
> Colons in filenames are fine and will be supported with cygwin-1.7.
> But c:/ it will not map to the root of some c drive, it will map to the
> subdir "c:"
> For now we had to use managed mounts for such names, soon we will be
> able to see readable names.
>   

[RGW] This is interesting news to me.  This would break the planned GNU 
make support for MSDOS paths under Cygwin, wouldn't it?  On which 
Windows filesystems will this be useful?  In other words, where might 
one see a directory named "c:" on a Windows box?


>   
>> 2. what are your thoughts on Cygwin's existing support for DOS paths?
>>     
>
> Why should we? For mingw builds use MSYS, for cygwin use cygwin.
> Don't mix what does not fit together.
>   
[RGW] Usefulness is a reason I can offer.  For what it's worth, I think 
that Cygwin fits very nicely Windows and other Windows tools.

-Rob


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Re: colons in Cygwin (was Re: make-3.81-3 (ITA??))

[Corinna Vinschen]

On Jul 17 16:54, Rob Walker wrote:
> Reini Urban wrote:
>> Colons in filenames are fine and will be supported with cygwin-1.7.
>> But c:/ it will not map to the root of some c drive, it will map to the
>> subdir "c:"
>> For now we had to use managed mounts for such names, soon we will be
>> able to see readable names.
>>   
>
> [RGW] This is interesting news to me.  This would break the planned GNU 
> make support for MSDOS paths under Cygwin, wouldn't it?  On which Windows 
> filesystems will this be useful?  In other words, where might one see a 
> directory named "c:" on a Windows box?

Cygwin is a POSIX emulation layer in the first place.  That's what we
are committed to in the first place.  Why would you want to use Win32
paths in a POSIX environment, except as parameter to native Win32 tools?
For dependency tracking in make there's no good reason to use the Win32
path.  You can just as well use the POSIX equivalent.  If you have to
convert between paths, there's the cygpath tool.

As for the directory called c:, you won't see it on most Windows
machines, given that Win32 doesn't allow it.  But you can see it on
POSIX machines and you can even see it on NTFS when using Microsoft's
SFU.  We're not explicitely talking about a dir called X:, but we're
talking about the general ability to use the colon as normal part of a
filename, as every POSIX system user usually can expect.  That leads
me elegantly back to my first sentence...


Corinna

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

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Re: colons in Cygwin (was Re: make-3.81-3 (ITA??))

[Rob Walker]

Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> On Jul 17 16:54, Rob Walker wrote:
>   
>> Reini Urban wrote:
>>     
>>> Colons in filenames are fine and will be supported with cygwin-1.7.
>>> But c:/ it will not map to the root of some c drive, it will map to the
>>> subdir "c:"
>>> For now we had to use managed mounts for such names, soon we will be
>>> able to see readable names.
>>>
>>>       
>> [RGW] This is interesting news to me.  This would break the planned GNU
>> make support for MSDOS paths under Cygwin, wouldn't it?  On which Windows
>> filesystems will this be useful?  In other words, where might one see a
>> directory named "c:" on a Windows box?
>>     
>
> Cygwin is a POSIX emulation layer in the first place.  That's what we
> are committed to in the first place.  Why would you want to use Win32
> paths in a POSIX environment, except as parameter to native Win32 tools?
>   

[RGW] This is exactly what I want it for.  Thing is, I don't want to 
know ahead of time whether the tool is Cygwin or not.  I'm counting on a 
small amount of interoperability.  More below...

> For dependency tracking in make there's no good reason to use the Win32
> path.

[RGW] I respect your opinion.  Let me offer mine:  I think several 
people have offered good reasons before on this list.  Our opinions 
aside: the reasons offered were good enough for the developers of make 
to offer this functionality in the mainline.

>   You can just as well use the POSIX equivalent.  If you have to
> convert between paths, there's the cygpath tool.
>   

[RGW] Yes, such a beast would be possible to construct, but it would be 
horribly inefficient.  I'd be wrapping every file parameter to every 
command with a call to cygpath.  It may be hard for you to imagine why 
I'd object to this, though, so here's some background:  our make system 
is quite large, and much the content of the makefiles is 
auto-generated.  We use it to compile or cross-compile some 30 flavors 
of our product, using a fairly even mixture of Windows and Cygwin 
tools.  The makefile generators are of the same even mix (e.g. we use 
compilers to generate .dep files).

The exact same make system is used to compile and cross compile on 
Linux, MacOS, and NetBSD.  The system works very well, with very few 
complaints from my team, our customers, and others who have used it.  
One of the most often heard complaints is that it's slow on Cygwin 
(because of the cost of exec).

-Rob


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Re: colons in Cygwin (was Re: make-3.81-3 (ITA??))

[Greg Chicares]

On 2008-07-18 18:08Z, Rob Walker wrote:
> Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> 
>>   You can just as well use the POSIX equivalent.  If you have to
>> convert between paths, there's the cygpath tool.
> 
> [RGW] Yes, such a beast would be possible to construct, but it would be 
> horribly inefficient.  I'd be wrapping every file parameter to every 
> command with a call to cygpath.

If, say, all your code is in "d:\foo", then use an "identity mount":
  mount d:\foo /foo
and you don't need 'cygpath' or drive letters with colons. See:
  http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2008-03/msg00962.html

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Re: colons in Cygwin (was Re: make-3.81-3 (ITA??))

[Corinna Vinschen]

On Jul 17 22:47, Reini Urban wrote:
> Rob Walker schrieb:
>> I didn't mean for anyone (especially the package maintainer) to infer
>> that make wasn't being actively supported.  My apologies for any
>> misunderstanding.
>> I'm very interested in your opinions on colons in paths.  I'd prefer to
>> hear directly what they are, to avoid any misunderstanding that might
>> arise from me trying to glean them from the archives.
>> Questions I have in particular:
>> 1. what are your thoughts on POSIX support for colons in paths?
>
> Colons in filenames are fine and will be supported with cygwin-1.7.
> But c:/ it will not map to the root of some c drive, it will map to the 
> subdir "c:"

Uhm... not quite.  While colons will work as normal parts of a filename
in the general case, it's still very hairy to differ between an incoming
POSIX and an incoming Win32 path in case of a path starting with X:

Cygwin 1.7 still isn't Win32 input path agnostic and can't be, because a
couple of internals also rely on this feature so far.  The result is
that, for the time being, paths starting with X:/ or X:\ are handled as
Win32 paths.

So, to treat c:/ as subdir c:, you have to prepend a ./ in 1.7.  I'm not
happy with this, but I think (and hope) it's a minor discomfort.


Corinna

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

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Re: colons in Cygwin (was Re: make-3.81-3 (ITA??))

[Eric Blake]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

According to Rob Walker on 7/17/2008 2:27 PM:
| Questions I have in particular:
| 1. what are your thoughts on POSIX support for colons in paths?

POSIX requires support for colons, but not as drive letters.  Use managed
mounts in 1.5.x, or wait for 1.7.0.

| 2. what are your thoughts on Cygwin's existing support for DOS paths?

If they work, it's a lucky accident.  I neither go out of my way to make
them work, nor worry about breaking it.  Use /cygdrive style paths instead.

- --
Don't work too hard, make some time for fun as well!

Eric Blake             ebb9@byu.net
volunteer cygwin bash maintainer
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