Re: Fwd: Re: [Mingw-users] Autoconf MSYS_PREFIX_HACK

[Keith Marshall]

On Wednesday 30 March 2005 8:49 pm, Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
> > The last part of your script, i.e. the conversion of slashes to
> > backslashes, is not only unnecessary, but is actually *less* robust than
> > simply leaving the slashes as they are, (which eliminates any concern
> > over what level of escaping you require).  Unless you are using some
> > seriously inept software, which goes out of its way to misinterpret
> > slashes in path names, the Win32 BDOS will accept the slash and the
> > backslash as equivalent -- indeed, this is equally true of all versions
> > of MS-DOS since 2.00, (which was the first to support a hierarchical file
> > system), and also of Win16, (which ran on top of MS-DOS in any case).
>
> It seems that the Bourne shell is therefore "seriously inept software"
> These paths are fed into the configure script where they are used to
> compute additional paths which are substituted into a configuration
> header for use within the compiled software.

Well, if by the "Bourne shell" you mean MSYS' Bourne shell, (which is 
actually `bash' masquerading as `sh'), I think you are mistaken.  I *never* 
specify paths with backslashes, when using this shell, even to invoke native 
Win32 programs, and I have not had any problem as a result.  Indeed, it is 
*only* if I try to use *backslashes* -- to show someone else how *bad* they 
are -- that I have ever experienced a problem.

I have been using MSYS, as my command line environment of choice on Win32, 
for at least the last two years, (probably nearer to three), and I used 
Cygwin for about three years before that.

Regards,
Keith.