Re: [Win32] putenv modifications not inherited by child processed (Was: Heap corruption in putenv)

[Michael Goffioul]

On Fri, Feb 15, 2013 at 2:10 PM, Paul Eggert <address@hidden> wrote:

On 02/15/2013 07:10 AM, Michael Goffioul wrote:
> I guess the only solution to this problem is to always _putenv and not manipulate "environ" directly.

Thanks, is that something you can write and contribute
to the GNU project?  This sort of thing really requires
Microsoft expertise, which I don't have.

I can give it a try, but not before a couple of days. Also to avoid breaking things, what is the putenv module supposed to solve? From what I understand, it is:

- make putenv("VARNAME") remove VARNAME from the environment

- make putenv("VARNAME=") create and empty environment variable

Is there anything else?

Reading the specs here [1], I don't think the bit: "In either case, the string pointed to by string shall become part of the environment, so altering the string shall change the environment." is actually possible. I believe _putenv ultimately calls SetEnvironmentVariable [2] and nothing there says that altering the given string will effectively alter the environment.

Michael.

[1] http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/putenv.html

[2] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms686206(v=vs.85).aspx