Is !C: a valid environment variable?

[Volker Quetschke <quetschke at scytek dot de>]

Hi!

If you start bash from a command prompt, e.g. by starting the
cygwin.bat you get funny environment variables:

bash-2.05b$ set | grep \!
!C:='C:\cygwin\bin'

When you exit bash and start it again from the same shell you can
even get:

bash-2.05b$ set | grep \!
!C:='C:\cygwin\bin'
!EXITCODE=00000000

But try to echo any of these, or define one with !.

bash-2.05b$ export !HELLO=hello
bash: !HELLO=hello: event not found

I think this special treatment is a bug, what is the prefered solution?

The special treatment is done in environ.cc:

  /* Current directory information is recorded as variables of the
     form "=X:=X:\foo\bar; these must be changed into something legal
     (we could just ignore them but maybe an application will
     eventually want to use them).  */

I'm asking because I have a programm that chokes on !<something>
environment variables, and he workaround I'm using is always starting
the shell via: C:\cygwin\bin\rxvt.exe -e /usr/bin/bash --login -i
from the desktop or logoing into that machine via ssh.

Volker

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