Re: Command line parsing in Cygwin 1.3.1

[Earnie Boyd <earnie_boyd at yahoo dot com>]

Lawrence Piano wrote:
> 
> I doubt this is specific to 1.3.1, but that's what I have installed.  My
> question is about some strange behavior I'm getting when running Windows
> apps from a shell command line.  If I do any cygwin command, it finds the
> correct root (/) directory, like: ls /, gives a listing of my root dir,
> c:/cygwin.
> 
> However, if I use a Win2k program like NTEmacs or Word, and type emacs
> /testfile or (my alias) word /testfile, they look for or create a file on
> the root dir of whatever disk, c:, d:, I'm on.  If I type: cd / and then do
> emacs or word, I get the same behavior.
> 
> That is - cygwin progs interpret / correctly and Windows progs don't.
> 

That statement isn't correct.  The Cygwin programs understand / to be a
reference to your mount point for / while the Win32 programs understand
/ to mean a reference the root of the disk drive letter that is your
current working drive.

You really don't expect Cygwin to change the behavior of non-Cygwin
programs do you?  That isn't feasibly possible.

> I thought my mounts might be the problem, but I've checked and they're the
> same as in the documentation:
> 
>         c:\cygwin\bin on /usr/bin type user (binmode)
>         c:\cygwin\lib on /usr/lib type user (binmode)
>         c:\cygwin on / type user (binmode)
> 

Non-Cygwin programs do not understand a Cygwinism such as mount points. 
No matter how hard you try this isn't going to happen.

> I've tried changing them to textmode but with no effect.  The same thing
> happens whether I use tcsh or bash.
> 
> Is there some shell option I need to set or is it a known - or unknown -
> bug?  Or will windows programs never have a clue about cygnus paths?
> 

They will never have a clue.

> I could live with it if emacs only worked right ...
> 

Use a Cygwinized emacs.  They exist.  Check the http://cygwin.com page
for pointers to ported tools.

Earnie.

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