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Re: Windows-style pathname does not work as command - why?


Christopher Faylor wrote:
On Thu, Sep 02, 2010 at 12:13:12PM -0600, Eric Blake wrote:
On 09/02/2010 11:45 AM, Daniel Barclay wrote:
I don't quite understand this behavior:

$ ls C:\\tools\\emacs-23.2\\bin\\runemacs.exe
C:\tools\emacs-23.2\bin\runemacs.exe
$ C:\\tools\\emacs-23.2\\bin\\runemacs.exe
bash: C:\tools\emacs-23.2\bin\runemacs.exe: command not found

In particular, why is it that bash does not understand that Windows
pathname when it is used as a command argument, even though bash and
Cygwin clearly understand it when it is used as a command argument?


Is that behavior a bug (e.g., does bash try to judge whether the command is an absolute vs. relative pathname without either first converting to a Unix-style pathname or otherwise recognizing Windows-style pathname)?

You're not the first to notice this, but it's also not the highest priority on my list to look into, because we already recommend using POSIX style paths in the first place.

Or is it some known irregularity (resulting from trying to handle both
Windows- and Unix-style pathnames) that couldn't be resolved?

Oh, I'm sure that bash could be patched to be smarter about DOS-style pathnames. But no one has been bothered by it enough to write a patch yet.

And, trying hard to make MS-DOS stuff work is sorta counter to the whole reason for Cygwin.

Isn't the whole reason for Cygwin actually to enable doing Unixy things in Windows (that is, providing Windows/Unix interoperablity?

Also, to clarify:  I didn't mean DOS-specific pathnames, as opposed to
general Windows pathname (e.g., meaning 8.3-style vs. VFAT long names).
I just meant DOS-/Windows-style pathnames (as opposed to Unix-style
pathnames).


Daniel








Daniel














cgf


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