Re: [bug #41246] Allow to switch shell batch mode at runtime instead of build time

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2014 16:01:06 +0900
> From: Mike Hommey <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden, address@hidden, address@hidden
> 
> I gave multiple examples already. It doesn't require backslashes to be a
> problem. Here's another one:
> 
> $ cat <<EOF >foo.mk
> default:
>         c:/path/to/python.exe -c 'import sys; sys.argv[1:]' "a" b c
> EOF
> $ make -f foo.mk
> c:/path/to/python.exe -c 'import sys; sys.argv[1:]' "a" b c
> ['a b', 'c']
> 
> And that (obviously) doesn't need make to fail:
> (in a cmd.exe shell):
> > c:/path/to/sh.exe -c "c:/path/to/python.exe -c 'import sys; sys.argv[1:]' 
> > \"a\" b c"
> ['a b', 'c']
> 
> (yes, this is how make quotes it, and the quoting is correct)

If you get the same result from the command line, then how is this a
problem with what Make does?  What am I missing?

> > > $ mkdir foo
> > > $ echo foo > foo/bar
> > > $ cat <<EOF >foo.mk
> > > default:
> > >         grep foo foo\\bar
> > >         grep "foo" foo\\bar
> > > $ make -f foo.mk
> > > grep foo foo\\bar
> > > foo
> > > grep "foo" foo\\bar
> > > /usr/bin/sh: foobar: No such file or directory
> > 
> > If you use forward slashes, do you see any problems in this case?
> 
> Obviously, no. But again, this is not a path problem:
> 
> $ cat <<EOF >foo.mk
> default:
>         echo foo foo\\bar
>         echo "foo" foo\\bar
> EOF
> $ make -f foo.mk
> echo foo foo\\bar
> foo foo\bar
> echo "foo" foo\\bar
> foo foobar
> 
> $ msysmake -f foo.mk
> echo foo foo\\bar
> foo foo\bar
> echo "foo" foo\\bar
> foo foo\bar

That's what I said earlier: if you want Posix compatibility with
backslash characters when your shell is MSYS Bash, you need to use the
MSYS Make.  The native build of Make doesn't treat backslashes as
merely escape characters, it also treats them as directory separators.
Obviously, that heuristic fails in this case, but the native Make is
not supposed to deal with such cases.