Re: Inconsistence on file operation when the name already exists with exe extension

["Steven Hartland" <killing@multiplay.co.uk>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Christopher Faylor"

> On Mon, Jul 09, 2012 at 05:23:13PM +0200, notstop wrote:
>>You must be right in some points, but that is not the exact behavior of 
>>windows command although you pretend it to be (the powershell has a 
>>different behavior). In fact, I can independently operate file while 
>>file.exe exists:
>>
>>copy file.exe file
>>Now there are file and file.exe
> 
> Nevertheless, FYI, powershell is not Cygwin and no one is saying that
> the behavior you're seeing is mandated by Windows.  What you are seeing
> is a Cygwin accommodation for the fact that .exe is a special extension.
> Cygwin is not a new project.  Its handling of .exe has been hashed and
> rehashed throughout the life of the project.  The current behavior is
> the compromise that we've settled on.

This is a change which causes us pain regularly. The defaults in previous
cygwin versions worked well and where predicatable from both a coding
and user perspective.

So we would have to agree with the author here that the current behavour
should be reviewed and reverted to the much safer and more expected
defaults where by only execution is a special case nothing more.

> So, what you are seeing is expected.  Continuing to argue without
> familiarizing yourself with past discussions is not likely to expose
> anything new.

Take the example of a tar archive which has a windows .exe and say
a Linux binary of the same name excluding the .exe. The current behaviour
will have random results depending on the order of the files in the
archive. So its likely that even though the archive extracted a working
.exe file once the extract is actually complete the .exe will not be
present.

I appreciate that the idea was to make cygwin more internally consistent
however surely predictable vs. random behaviour (as far as the user
is concerned) is preferable is it not?

    Regards
    Steve


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