Re: Fix for HAVE_DOS_PATHS build on cygwin

[William A. Hoffman]

At 11:58 AM 8/21/2006, Christopher Faylor wrote:
>On Mon, Aug 21, 2006 at 05:11:14AM -0400, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>>> Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2006 16:15:41 -0400
>>> From: Earnie Boyd
>>> 
>>> For the Cygwin variant which isn't currently using HAVE_DOS_PATHS users 
>>> may indeed want the option to build their version configured 
>>> --without-dos-paths.  Why release a version of software where users 
>>> might complain so that you can then fix it?
>>
>>I believe you are wrong in assuming that Cygwin users are not familiar
>>with this mode of operation.  This whole thread is a result of
>>_dropping_ support for drive letters from the Cygwin version of Make
>>3.81, which caused complaints on the Cygwin list.  So, up and
>>including v3.80, Cygwin users were using such a support as part of
>>Make, even though HAVE_DOS_PATHS was not compiled (instead, a
>>Cygwin-specific patch was maintained to provide that support).
>>
>>Chris, am I missing something?
>
>I don't think so.  I believe that Cygwin's make v3.79 did not understand
>posix paths unless the --win32 option was specified.  So there may be a
>class of users who are conditioned to that behavior but they would be a
>small minority, I think.  In 3.80 (which has been out for a long time
>now), I inadvertently allowed MS-DOS paths to be recognized by default,
>and this is what is causing all of the furor in the cygwin list.
>
>So, it seems like recent users of make expect to be able to use DOS
>paths whereever they want.  It also seems like building make from
>scratch is probably beyond the vast majority of the users.  I don't
>think that an option is necessary right now.  If someone is brave enough
>to build make without MS-DOS support, then the change is simple enough.

The drive letter issue is the real problem.   Most windows programs accept 
POSIX slash paths.   But they do not know about /cygdrive/c or /c/.  They
only know c:/.   But creating a patch that only allows the drive letter and
not \ MS-DOS paths would be much more work since the work of having both
\ and / paths supported is already done.

-Bill