#214 Apparent meaningless environmental variables

[DanAaronGoldman]

In MSYS window. I get the following lines as part of printenv output:

!::=::\
!C:=C:\Windows\System32

Here is more complete listing.

$ echo $MSYSTEM
MSYS

$ printenv | sort | head
!::=::\
!C:=C:\Windows\System32
_=/usr/bin/printenv
ALLUSERSPROFILE=C:\ProgramData
APPDATA=C:\Users\dgoldman\AppData\Roaming
CommonProgramFiles(x86)=C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files
COMMONPROGRAMFILES=C:\Program Files\Common Files
CommonProgramW6432=C:\Program Files\Common Files
COMPUTERNAME=LEMUR
COMSPEC=C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe

I posted this to discussion more than a week ago. One user responded, verified that the problem also occurred on their msys2 installation. Nobody offered an explanation. So I'm reporting this as a bug.

Thanks,
Daniel

[David Macek]

This is not a bug AFAICT. These variables are part of the environment block and represent current working directories on each drive. I'm not sure what the !:: one does, so if you figure that out, let us know.

If you still think it's a bug, raise an issue with the Cygwin project and post a link to it here.

References:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2010/05/06/10008132.aspx
http://ss64.com/nt/syntax-variables.html

[David Macek]

Continuing in #215.