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Re: gzip.exe as symlink breaks NTEmacs's jka-compr.el


Sounds to me like NTEmacs is broken, and should be able to interpret
symlinks if it wants to interoperate with cygwin.

Heck, it could even link with cygwin and get that for free!

Rob

----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt Swift" <swift@alum.mit.edu>
To: <cygwin@cygwin.com>
Sent: Monday, July 15, 2002 3:36 PM
Subject: gzip.exe as symlink breaks NTEmacs's jka-compr.el


>
> Cygwin package gzip 1.3.3 made the change (from 1.3.2) that /bin/gzip
> is a symlink to /bin/gunzip instead of the other way around.  This
> change breaks NTEmacs 20.7 and 21.1 on Win2k.  To reproduce, try
> evaluating
>
>     (call-process "gzip" nil '(t t) nil "--version")
>
> and Emacs will either freeze until you issue multiple C-g's or Win2k
> will popup an "illegal instruction" error dialog.
>
> The common and useful package jka-compr.el (when loaded) by default
> invokes `call-process' on "gzip" to uncompress as well as compress
> files, rather than "gunzip".
>
> You get similar errors if you invoke `call-process' on any of the
> symlinks in /cygwin/bin (e.g., awk.exe -> gawk.exe).
>
> Initial workaround:
>
>         cp /bin/gunzip.exe /usr/local/bin/gzip.exe
>
> (assuming /usr/local/bin is in the PATH (NTEmacs's `exec-path' before
> /bin).  Could also change a jka-compr variable to use "gunzip" instead
> of "gzip", but that seems less robust (other Emacs-Lisp code probably
> calls "gzip" too).
>
> I wasted more than an hour tracking down this bug (not a bug in Cygwin
> per se, really, but a change that caused a bug with software very
> commonly used with Cygwin).  I didn't look hard, but I found no
> comment in the gzip 1.3.3 sources indicating why the change was made
> in the symlinks.  Please don't change things that are not broken!
>
>
>
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