cyg Simple wrote: > On 9/1/2018 5:52 PM, Andrey Repin wrote: > > Greetings, David Allsopp! > > > >>> In terms of this OCAML build system problem: > >>> > >>> Please fix your build system. Do not mix POSIX and Win32 paths, use > >>> POSIX paths only. Backslashes are *no* drop-in replacement for slashes. > > > >> The "problem" for us is more subtle than this. The program which is > >> generating that path is not a Cygwin executable, so it is correctly > >> combining a path it has been supplied (the ../stdlib which has been > >> supplied via Cygwin's make) with a filename, so it uses a backslash. > >> It's been on my TODO for years to enhance to understand that the > >> program it's supplying the path back to is a Cygwin executable and so > >> sort it out properly but, well, we're a small number of maintainers! That > said, WSL is forcing us to address it properly... > > > > You CAN just send back forward slashes. Windows don't care.
That's not strictly true, as mkdir foo/bar will demonstrate in a command prompt (it is almost true when dealing with the Windows API). However, IMO, one looks like a Unix programmer who doesn't really understand Windows when your programs visibly use forward slashes everywhere. > > If any program would choke, it would be that program's problem after all. > > Certainly not "that program's problem". The problem becomes mine and yours > as we've not followed the design of the program. While Windows at the > moment doesn't care there is always the possibility that some fix could break > that since the documentation states to use \ in paths and not /. So while we > "CAN just send back forward slashes" we need to be prepared for the outcome > if something changes in an update to the OS and breaks the assumptions based > on observed behavior rather than the documented behavior. Just as an aside, the use of slashes is documented: see Kuhne's compulsory reading on the subject at https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/jeremykuhne/2016/04/21/path-normalization/ and also the notes in MSDN (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/desktop/FileIO/naming-a-file#maximum-path-length-limitation) which do mention that normalisation of / to \ in the API is not an accident. David -- Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/ Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple
