Re: Bug: link.exe

[Corinna Vinschen <corinna-cygwin at cygwin dot com>]

On Jan  4 17:17, Sam Steingold wrote:
> > * Corinna Vinschen <pbevaan-pltjva@pltjva.pbz> [2004-12-23 10:35:16 +0100]:
> >> My temporary fix for my developers is to remove coreutils `link' from
> >> our systems,
> 
> that's what I had to do too.
> 
> >> but if it is reinstalled every time coreutils is
> >> upgraded, this will cause an ongoing problem.
> 
> indeed.
> 
> moving the woe32 directory forward in PATH appears to be the only
> "solution" (you never know what important unix commands will be shadowed)

But it is the perfect solution.  It's also very useful to become just
a bit less lazy (no offense meant) and to type full paths when you want
to be really sure.  Bold example:

	alias rm 'rm -f'
	rm *

I know that this might sound mean again, but it's actually not my first
thought to ease the life of people using MSDEV.  I have no problems with
the fact that you're using it, I did myself long enough.  However, my
main motivation is to develop and maintain an environment which is as
close to Linux as possible.  The less you have to use native Windows
tools and the less you feel Windows under your fingertips the more happy
I am.

The main problem here is that there are basically two points of view
about what the Cygwin distro is good for and where to set the focus.
Unfortunately in case of coreutils you're stuck with a maintainer (me)
which looks in the opposite direction of yours.

> > The link tool is installed by default on Linux as well.
> 
> what does it do that ln(1) does not?
> alas, both ln(1) and link(1) are in SUS,
> http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/ln.html
> http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/link.html
> so we are stuck here.

Right.

> the announcement did not mention link(1).
> or you mean that you are willing to surrender maintainership?

Yes.  Take over maintainership and decide to omit link(1) from the
package.  In that case you have what you want.  But keep also in mind
that coreutils is just *one* package.  With every new package you might
get this problem back in one way or the other.

The bottom line is, you can complain, but the better solution is to make
your environment more foolproof against changes in one part of it.
In case of MSDEV tools I suggest to put the MSDEV tool path in front of
the Cygwin paths.  It's what I'd do anyway.


Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Project Co-Leader          mailto:cygwin@cygwin.com
Red Hat, Inc.

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