Re: path separator

[Brian Dessent]

Bob Rossi wrote:

> Yes, thanks Keith!
> 
> For the simple minded like myself, does this boil down to the fact that
> the PATH_SEPARATOR is different if an application is run from a cmd or
> msys shell?

The way I would have worded it would have been much simpler.

If your app links against a POSIX emulation layer (cygwin1.dll or
msys-1.0.dll) then use colon, otherwise use semicolon.  This is a static
condition that does not change at all once the app is built, i.e. it
does not depend on how it's executed.

Assuming your app is a native app (i.e. the answer to the above is 'no')
then even if your app is run from a MSYS sh.exe it should still get a
copy of PATH that uses colons, since MSYS sh.exe should be able to tell
that this is not a MSYS binary.  The "how it tells" is either by looking
at whether it's linked against msys-1.0.dll or whether it's installed in
the MSYS bin directory -- I forget which method is used and I think it
changed recently anyway.

Brian