Re: [bug-gettext] /bin/sh calls in msginit.c on Windows

[Michele Locati]

Hi Bruno!

> I wouldn't want to use wsl.exe from a mingw program.
> 1. Microsoft documents that accessing the same files from the Linux side
>    and from the Windows side can lead to file system corruption. [1]


The reason why a patch is needed for Windows is because I have a
couple of warnings when running msginit.exe:

C:\Dev\test\bin>msginit.exe -i dictionary.pot -o language.po -l it_IT
msginit.exe: subprocess C:\Dev\test/lib/gettext/user-email failed: No
such file or directory
msginit.exe: subprocess
C:\Dev\test/share/gettext/projects/team-address failed: No such file
or directory

language.po created.


(messages were in Italian, I manually translated them to English in this email).


That's why I'd like to patch msginit.


About WSL:

WLS is installed via the Microsoft Store, and its filesystem is saved
at a location like this:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\CanonicalGroupLimited.Ubuntu18.04onWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc\LocalState\rootfs

Where %LOCALAPPDATA% usually is C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local

What shouldn't be done is working on Linux files in that directory.

What's absolutely legal is to take advantage of the Windows/Linux
interoperability.

With the wsl.exe Windows command you can run Linux commands, as well
as opening a bash shell (which offers the very handy wslpath command).

Here's a sample cmd.exe + bash shell session:


C:\Users\miche>echo %OS%
Windows_NT

C:\Users\miche>wsl pwd
/mnt/c/Users/miche

C:\Users\miche>wsl
address@hidden:/mnt/c/Users/miche$ uname -a
Linux Chronos10 4.4.0-17763-Microsoft #379-Microsoft Wed Mar 06
19:16:00 PST 2019 x86_64 x86_64 x
86_64 GNU/Linux
address@hidden:/mnt/c/Users/miche$ cmd.exe /C echo %OS%
Windows_NT
address@hidden:/mnt/c/Users/miche$ wslpath -a
wslpath: Invalid argument
Usage:
    -a    force result to absolute path format
    -u    translate from a Windows path to a WSL path (default)
    -w    translate from a WSL path to a Windows path
    -m    translate from a WSL path to a Windows path, with '/' instead of '\'

EX: wslpath 'c:\users'
address@hidden:/mnt/c/Users/miche$ exit
logout

C:\Users\miche>wsl $(wslpath 'C:\\Dev\\test/lib/gettext/user-email')
Is the following your email address?
  m@
Please confirm by pressing Return, or enter your email address.

m@


Please remark that
C:\\Dev\\\test/lib/gettext/user-email is the value of
relocate (LIBDIR "/gettext/user-email");
except that I manually doubled the backslashes.


> 2. The user experience is likely unexpected and unsatisfying, because
>    wsl.exe is really a different world than the rest of Windows.

I'm sorry I don't understand what you mean... I'd use wsl just to run
the POSIX scripts project-id, user-email, and team-address.

--
Michele