Re: 'cp' utility bug when <dest-name>.exe file exist.

[Eric Backus <eric_backus at alum dot mit dot edu>]

Eric Blake writes:

> A first step would be teaching gcc to not append .exe.  Many configure
> scripts (certainly almost all scripts based on autoconf) determine
> $(EXEEXT) based on gcc behavior, and will just do the right thing
> throughout the rest of the build with $(EXEEXT) empty (as evidenced by
> their behavior on Linux).
> 
> But even with that gcc change, we'd have to keep .exe magic in
> cygwin1.dll until everything in the distro has been rebuilt without an
> .exe suffix.
> 
> However, I'm starting to like the idea, if we can get buy-in from the
> gcc packager.  Dave?


This is really an interesting discussion.  I too find some of the existing 
behavior strange, and perhaps there is room for improvement.

However, when I see this kind of thing, I try to remember what Cygwin really 
is (for me anyway).  It is not *just* a POSIX environment.  If I wanted *just* 
a POSIX environment, I'd run Linux, perhaps in a virtual machine, and I would 
have a better POSIX environment than Cygwin can ever provide.

For me, Cygwin is a nearly-POSIX environment that cooperates and interoperates 
nicely with the Windows operating system.  In Windows, executables end 
in .exe, and Windows shells (and other Windows programs) rely on that.  If you 
want to be able to execute a cygwin executable from a Windows shell, you need 
that .exe.  Sure, we've seen some interesting ways to configure some windows 
shells to work around this, but 99.9% of users won't know that (I certainly 
didn't until now).

So this reasoning leads me to think that the .exe magic is probably a good 
idea, though it may still need tweaking to make is as benign as possible.


As a side note, this same kind of reasoning is why I think Cygwin bash should 
default the igncr option to on.  Also why Cygwin symlinks should probably 
default to using real Windows symlinks.  And why Cygwin should probably go 
back to reading/setting/clearing the DOS read-only attribute.  And why more 
effort should be put into supporting text-mode mounts.  There, is that enough 
controversy?

-- 
Eric Backus


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