Re: The Cygwin User Guide on path names

[Linda Walsh <cygwin at tlinx dot org>]

Andrey Repin wrote:
> Also, @ Linda, the string escaping is done by the shell before passing
> arguments to the command, as I understand.
> If I'm starting an application not from shell, the app, being a good citizen,
> should not second-guess the arguments it is given.
---
	Absolutely.  Don't get me wrong.  I am NOT for removing 
functionality or compatibility.  If the Winpaths work for you
in your situation, I am all for keeping them working!  No reason
to break previous compatibility needlessly.  Way too often, developers 
are throwing away previous compat. because its convenient, to make
it harder for the user to maintain & control their machine.

	I usually find the forward slashes easier to use because
of the quoting issue -- as I used ls for an example.  Same would
apply to diff though.  I.e. -- in bash, if you type

 > diff C:\tmp\file1 C:\tmp\file2

It won't do what many might think it 'should', -- it will
try to compare "C:tmpfile1" & C:tmpfile2, with the backquotes
removed before diff or patch ever see the filenames.  

You have to be careful to add extra quoting if you use Winpaths,
like:

 > diff 'C:\tmp\file1' 'C:\tmp\file2'

If you used the unix path format, and have your cygdrive prefix =
'/', then you can type the above like:

 > diff /c/file{1,2}

Which involves alot less typing (if 'c' is your root drive and you are
on the same drive, you could leave off the '/c' above to get:

 > diff /file{1,2}

Which is even less typing... Personally, I like the shortest
format that works! But that doesn't mean longer forms shouldn't work
as well!

-l



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