> From: Yaakov (Cygwin/X) > Sent: Wednesday, January 27, 2010 04:13 > To: cygwin@cygwin.com > Subject: Re: Bug: cygport fails when the working directory pathname > contains spaces > > On 27/01/2010 02:36, Matthias Andree wrote: > <snip/> > > If you're unwilling to fix the cygport parts of the bug, that's fine, > > but claiming that fixing it were generally not worthwhile amounts to > > blessing insecure programming practices. > > Remember that cygport serves a single purpose: to build packages, and > "fixing" cygport will not guarantee that a package will build in a path > containing spaces. For instance, both (autoconf-)configure and libtool > (by far the most common build system out there) are shell scripts, and > have certainly not worked in these situations in the past. (I can't > speak for the current situation wrt these tools.) So there is little > benefit in pretending to fix cygport when the result will be exactly > the same. > > Maybe I should just include a sanity check to force cygport not to run > in such paths instead. > > > Of course fixing cygport won't assure its user that the package > itself > > is safe in paths with blanks, but at least then you can say that > you've > > done your part and the fix is SOEP (someone else's problem). > > Shifting the blame on to others won't help anybody one bit. The > package > STILL will not build, so what has anybody gained? > > > That other parts might fail is NOT AN excuse to not do your own job > in a > > way that breaks other people's expectations. > > I've been around long enough to know that many (most?) people's > expectations about Cygwin are generally incorrect. As for those who > generally use cygport, namely package maintainers, they obviously DON'T > USE SPACES because I can't remember such a complaint before. > > > I'd seriously ask you to reconsider. > > And if this were bugzilla I would be deciding between closing this > NOTABUG or WONTFIX. :-) > > > Yaakov
Despite not having a dog in this fight, I feel compelled to go on record to support Mathias and the OP that this is an obvious defect in cygports that ought to be fixed. I think an appropriate sanity check would be on a decision "to force cygport not to run in such paths" instead of fixing the defect. --Ken Nellis
