[ANNOUNCEMENT] Updated: Cygwin 2.2.0-1

[Thomas Wolff]

Am 05.08.2015 um 09:54 schrieb Corinna Vinschen:
> On Aug  4 20:53, Achim Gratz wrote:
>> Warren Young writes:
>>> Here’s an interesting experiment to try on your non-Cygwin POSIX boxes:
>>>
>>>      $ HOME=/dfjkshkds bash -l
>>>      $ echo $HOME
>>>
>>> Guess what it prints.
>>>
>>> Hint: It isn’t the second-to-last field in /etc/passwd. :)
> This is correct behaviour, of course.
>
>>> Spoiler: Apparently Cygwin is already doing the standard thing.
> No, it's not.  Or, to phrase it a bit differently, it doesn't perform
> thr action it was supposed to do.  My testing seemed to be a teeny bit
> half-hearted...
>
> The problem the fix was *supposed* to fix (but it didn't) was to disallow
> incoming $HOME values which are non-POSIX or non-absolute paths.  These
> $HOME values should be disregarded.
Why?
> So the idea was:
>
>    set HOME=foo		<- ignored, set HOME from passwd DB entry
>    set HOME=C:/foo	<- same
No, please don't!
>    set HOME=//foo/bar	<- same
>    set HOME=/foo/bar	<- valid, taken
>
> Right now, when started from a non-Cygwin process, Cygwin takes the
> value of $HOME and simply calls the Win32->POSIX conversion function.
> It does so for a long time, but is that right?  Especially if %HOME% is
> a non-absolute == relative path, the resulting POSIX value of $HOME
> depends on the current directory when starting Cygwin.
Other POSIX systems don't handle this situation well either, so I don't 
see a need to act here.
> This sounds like a terrible idea to me.  Together with cases like
> https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2015-07/msg00344.html, and the fact that
> $HOME has no meaning in native Windows (HOMEPATH/HOMEDRIVE instead) I'm
> inclined to think that any incoming $HOME should make sense from a POSIX
> POV, otherwise we take the value from the passwd DB as defined by
> /etc/nsswitch.conf.
>
> Does anybody have a *good* reason *not* to change this?
Yes, other Windows software ported or inspired from POSIX may also check 
for HOME just in case (e.g. my editor does...).
Also, if somebody sets HOME in Windows, it is more intuitive to use 
Windows path syntax, so this case should be handled gracefully, just 
like PATH is converted.
Thomas

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