How does cygwin map / to c:/cygwin?

["Jeff Perry" <jsp at mail dot utexas dot edu>]

I am very confused about how cygwin maps its root to the c:/cygwin
directory.  I'm also not sure what /cygdrive is.

When I type gvim /etc/passwd from bash, gvim comes up with an empty file
called passwd in c:/etc (which doesn't exist).  If I try to write this file,
gvim fails, which, of course, it should. (The gvim I'm using is the one
compiled for NT).

Can someone tell me why this happens?

Also, when I try to tab-expand /cygdrive/c/..., bash can never expand the
files.  For example, if I type
$ cd /cygdrive/c/winn<tab>, bash cannot complete the 't' and instead beeps.
But if I complete it for bash by adding the t and the pressing <return>,
bash will cd me to the c:/winnt directory.

Can someone tell me why this is true?

Jeff


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