Re: [Mingw-msys] faulty symlinks?

[Paul G. <pga...@my...>]

(neglected to add mailing list to destinations)

Hi folks,

  After reading the post below, had some first thoughts as to what might
be causing such a thing...
  Also, chances that MSYS is messing up path references is 98% unlikely.  

  FWIW, Symlinks are special types of file references, there are two
types of symlinks, absolute and relative.  The former is a direct link
to a file and the latter an indirect link.  Tmp and Temp, aside from the
fact that /tmp is used sometimes for MSYS and /Temp is only necessary
where the MS Operating System is concerned.  Temp is also defined by the
MS Operating Systems (registry settings), and it is differently assigned
("pathed") depending on what OS is in use.

----- Original Message -----
From: "s_e_gallo" <s_e...@em...>
Date: Saturday, February 23, 2002 9:41 am
Subject: [Mingw-msys] faulty symlinks?

> Hi,
>
> I believe I've got msys set up properly on a windows 2000 machine,
> in d:\Tools\msys, but I notice something really, really strange:
>
> 1. If I create a /tmp directory (d:/Tools/msys/tmp) and stick
> stuff in it, rather than see that stuff, I see stuff in my
> c:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp directory
>
> 2. If I attempt to create a /usr directory from the rxvt console,
> it won't let me, and with no apparent /usr folder I can cd into
> /usr and ls.exe lists the contents of my
> root directory "/" (d:/Tools/msys/).
>
> 3. With no /usr directory present, I'm unable to cd into /usr
> using cmd.exe, but after creating /usr with cmd.exe, when I cd
> into /usr, I again see the contents of my root directory.
>
> 4. When I create a folder named usr on c:\Documents and
> Settings\Administrator\Desktop\ and stick stuff in it, then cd
> into the folder, all works well and I see the stuff.

  Off the top of my head, I would say it has nothing to do with MSYS and
everything to do with Win2k. In the Win2k registry, there are settings
embedded for temp files. I am not certain if the Windows 2000 registry
sets tmp to temp, but indications are that is exactly what is going on.

  My theory: Windows 2000, even though it is primarily NTFS file
partitions, was built to depend on the Win9x registry format. This can
be verified by checking to see if your system directory is c:\Windows or
c:\WinNT.

  If it is the former, than it is a left over from the Win9x system that
MS choose not to address, "because it worked just fine with Win9x". Not
to say that is cause of your situation, but a theory. At any rate, you
might want to set up your path references so that they are specific for
MSYS. MS path references are only used under MSYS to access the
necessary (or default) system directory depending on the OS being used.

  If the system directory is c:\windows, then all of the problems
associated with invalid path references can be easily assigned to how
most developers are able to determine the difference between Win9x,
WinNT, WinXP and Win2k.

>
> Does anyone have any ideas on the cause if this behavior? I'm not
> a unix power user yet , but I keep thinking "symlinks" , and I
> would appreciate the feedback from anyone else who's experienced
> this near-paranormal phenomenon and anyone with hints on how to
> fix it. Thank you.

  Again, I am not saying that it is the registry that is indeed causing
the problem. It is just an observation made countless times over a
number of years working with multiple windows operating systems (Win9x,
WinNT, Win2k & WinXP, that it is highly likely (90%) it is the MS OS
that is forcing the mis-reference between /tmp and /temp unless you can
show that it is most definitely not the registry setup for Win2k, I will
have to go with the evaluation/analysis above.


   Paul G.