Re: Helping with the port?
===
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Ineson" <john@ineson.net>
To: "Robert Collins" <robert.collins@itdomain.com.au>
Cc: "Junichi Uekawa" <dancer@netfort.gr.jp>;
<debian-win32@lists.debian.org>
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 4:01 AM
Subject: Re: Helping with the port?
> Hi guys, just signed up. I'm not much of a coder (yet), but I know
both
> Windows & Linux fairly well. Hope I'll be able to help with the
project.
>
> On Thu, Jan 24, 2002 at 11:36:04PM +1100, Robert Collins wrote:
> > IIRC, : can be stored in NTFS native names,using the POSIX_SEMANTICS
> > flag,
>
> It can, however can a Cygwin shell access filenames using the POSIX
> namespace? I certainly can't create files containing ':' using bash.
> I wouldn't want a system containing files that I couldn't access from
a
> shell -- would you?
Yes, but that's because Cygwin doesn't use POSIX_SEMANTICS all the time,
it can be modified to do that and thus all cygwin linked tools will get
access to ":" - unless they've explicit code disabling that.
> (I think it's Cygwin that's got it wrong here -- I see no need for
> retaining compatibility with the win32 "driveletter:" syntax)
As an intermediary layer between true POSIX applications, and Win32
applications, Cygwin does have to make compromises. Cygwin wasn't
designed to be a subsystem (which can disregard things like
driverlete:).
> > or the NT Native API, but that doesn't help for win9x.
>
> (Or FAT partitions in 2K/XP)
:].
> > One
> > possibility is escaping the : in some form, consistently, and then
> > unescaping it in libc.
>
> Not pretty, and would cause unexpected results if the user tried to
> access the files from a non-Cygwin app. Not that I have a better
> suggestion.
Neither do I, but like you say, it ain't pretty.
> Is there a compelling reason why these legacy systems should be a
target
> for the port? To my mind win9x is a dying platform with many technical
> limitations; likewise FAT. Supporting them would be nice, but I'd
class
> that as an additional goal once the system is up and running well on
NT
> with NTFS. Perhaps that's just me?
I cannot say if there is or isn't a compelling reason. Cygwin currently
jumps through hoops to provide the level of support for win9x it does,
and as an open source application, whilst contributors test and submit
bug reports, I'm sure that the code will remain. If debian-win32
leverages cygwin, I think it would be premature to limit the platforms,
until forced to.
How many ':''s are used in base-config?
Rob
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