On Wed, 12 Apr 2006, Christopher Faylor wrote: > On Wed, Apr 12, 2006 at 12:05:04PM -0400, Igor Peshansky wrote: > >On Wed, 12 Apr 2006, Christopher Faylor wrote: > >>On Wed, Apr 12, 2006 at 07:43:33AM -0400, Jeff Lange wrote: > >>>/dev/zero does work properly. I changed line 68 in /etc/profile to use > >>>/dev/zero instead of /dev/null and I no longer get the bash error on > >>>start up. > > > >FWIW, /dev/zero is not always the proper substitution for /dev/null > >(i.e., on input redirection, it will work differently). > > > >>>Perhaps the cygwin libraries should be modified so that if the windows > >>>NUL device doesn't exist, it should use a different method. > >> > >>Sorry, no. We already have enough special cases in the code. We're > >>not going to start adding more for XP Embedded. > > > >What I'm wondering is whether we need the Windows NUL device at all for > >implementing /dev/null... It's rather trivial[*] to implement one > >without resorting to a Windows device. Would there be any way of > >distinguishing an emulation from the real NUL device? > > Wasn't that the point that the OP was making and to which I responded?
Umm, not quite. The OP was proposing doing this conditionally, if NUL is not present. I was asking what the drawbacks of always using an emulated null device were. > I really do understand this stuff, Igor. > > When possible we always try to use the underlying device. There are > obvious benefits to doing things this way and there is no reason to > abandon this policy for XP Embedded. Ok, I understand the issue now. Thanks for explaining it. Igor -- http://cs.nyu.edu/~pechtcha/ |\ _,,,---,,_ [EMAIL PROTECTED] | [EMAIL PROTECTED] ZZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ Igor Peshansky, Ph.D. (name changed!) |,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-' old name: Igor Pechtchanski '---''(_/--' `-'\_) fL a.k.a JaguaR-R-R-r-r-r-.-.-. Meow! "Las! je suis sot... -Mais non, tu ne l'es pas, puisque tu t'en rends compte." "But no -- you are no fool; you call yourself a fool, there's proof enough in that!" -- Rostand, "Cyrano de Bergerac" -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/