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Re: Mysterious gdb behavior.


On 29 Jul 2002 at 12:02, Robert Collins wrote:

> 3) You assert "They do. Windows ALWAYS assigns an 8.3 version of a
> filename that has a long name, a long extension, multiple extensions
> (foo.tar.gz, etc.), or an unusual character in the name such as a
> space." Again, emphasis is mine. We are now both asserting different
> things. 
> http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2002-07/msg02242.html

And in my experience that's true. If there's a registry hack to make 
Windows behave differently, that's neither surprising nor relevant. 
Making Windows behave outside of its normal design specifications can 
be expected to screw things up. (Hell, even without messing with it 
it tends to screw thigns up :)) The default behavior is what's most 
important -- anyone who's diddled with it in weird nonstandard ways 
ought to be aware it might affect things. Notably any MS-DOS or 16 
bit app that needs to access a directory. It's reasonable to expect 
it to affect ported stuff in general.

> This disproves your assertions in 1) and 3), and proves 2).

It demonstrates that there's a rare exception that involves purposely 
fiddling with the normal behavior of the operating system in a way 
that isn't within the default range of behaviors. When someone does 
that anything can happen.

> It also demonstrates that you have not followed up the reference
> provided, and are wasting my time.

What reference, provided when? I could hardly follow up that 
reference one iteration *before* you posted it. Obviously you again 
expected me to read minds.

[Snip patronizing comments about needing to be corrected like a small 
child.]

I don't care for your tone mister. Also, it's not *my* job to 
research all of this stuff. It's my job to use this software and 
expect it to work. If something needs to be done to the code to make 
it work for a corner case that was not sufficiently allowed for 
before, then whoever maintains the code should do it, and whatever 
research is needed to make the right changes. I was only suggesting 
how it might change. You seem to think I was trying to assert how it 
should be changed. I was not. I was speculating. You took my 
speculations for facts and then used this straw man to try to make me 
look like an idiot on a public forum, and I do not appreciate that. I 
suggest you do indeed refrain from answering anything else I post, or 
from mentioning me here. Killfiling me might be a good idea.

This whole situation is ludicrous. I posted with a gdb problem. 
Someone posted *suspecting* that the directory name with a space in 
it was causing the problem. I pointed out that the installer chose 
the name, not me, and that I don't recall it giving me a chance to 
use another, at least not after informing me that spaces in path 
names might cause problems. So I asked what to do about it now. You 
suggested editing /etc/passwd but have as yet declined to give me any 
more specific instructions, and I'm loath to just assume a simple 
thing like changing the name consistently in the file and renaming 
the directory will work without a hitch. My other speculations have 
proven to have exceptions or other gotchas, as you keep pointing out, 
so why should I actually risk reconfiguring my system without enough 
knowledge? Aside from your one incomplete (as in, insufficiently 
detailed) suggestion you have provided nothing to help my problem, 
but you have spewed a great volume of unpleasantness I would have 
much rather never heard. In fact, I get the feeling you just like a 
good fight, and will try to maneuver people on mailing lists into 
having to defend a bogus straw man position you attributed to them 
just to amuse yourself. I can think of no other explanation for the 
way this has gotten out of hand. One other poster quite helpfully 
suggested I just move the project I'm debugging, or even a specific 
executable to be debugged, out of the bothersome directory tree; an 
excellent idea I wish I'd thought up myself. That poster is a paragon 
of helpfulness. You are a paragon of condescending arrogance with no 
apparent goal but to subtly reinforce your own belief in your own 
intellectual superiority, at the expense of whatever newbie happens 
to get in your crosshairs on any given week.

In fact, I think I am about to killfile you. Fire a parting shot if 
you wish. I don't care.

> 5) You claim that a Long filename without a short file name will cause
> all sorts of trouble, even though you have been provided with
> documentation from Microsoft about a supported method for creating just
> such a situation. 
> http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2002-07/msg02247.html

And it will. The file won't be accessible to legacy applications for 
one. And it will cause trouble for cygwin, as *you* pointed out. 
There's obviously a very good reason why it's not the default 
behavior of the filesystem and why it requires jumping through 
registry hoops to do that -- because it occasionally is needed for 
something but when messed with casually it screws things up, like 
dynamite or highly toxic industrial chemicals.

> You were provided with an external link to authoritative documentation
> about the topic. No guessing was needed about whether SFN are *always*
> created or not.

Before the link was provided, guessing was needed. I had no idea that 
link even existed before you posted. What do you expect of me, that I 
see the future, or read your mind? Or just that every single thing I 
even speculate about I should research for years and get a Ph.D. in 
the subject before opening my mouth. (That would, incidentally, cause 
a catch-22 when it came time to write the Ph.D. thesis!) The former 
is ludicrous because it's obviously beyond the capabilities of most, 
if not all, human beings. The latter is ludicrous for essentially the 
same reasons. Nobody has time to research every little thing that 
pops into their head, or to make every posting they make to a mailing 
list a scientific paper with everything properly cited and supported 
by cited evidence, graphs, charts, and data points. Even if I had the 
Clockstoppers watch and thus had the time I couldn't be arsed to do 
so. Besides, my discourse would then make me seem to be Mr. Spock or 
something, and I'd quickly know everything, and all conversation 
would become boring, and then I'd have no more use for other human 
beings, and before long I'd be depressed and lonely and probably kill 
myself. :P

Your expectations of a mere user are ridiculous. A user posts saying 
they have a problem, they want instructions, as detailed as possible, 
on fixes and workarounds, not explanations of how stupid a newbie 
they are and why, nor "tough shit, you didn't read the FAQ before you 
installed cygwin and its FAQ like you should have", nor a vague "edit 
the /etc/passwd file" that would have a genuine stupid newbie type 
"nano /etc/passwd" at the bash prompt and then stare in puzzlement at 
the screen wondering what to do next.

> In the light of this, I assume that you have not attempted the archival
> search for topic relating to home directories with spaces in them, which
> was the first thing I suggested.

What? I don't remember seeing this suggestion. Besides, it's 
ridiculous. I don't need to try it to guess that putting "home 
directories with spaces in them" into the search engine will almost 
certainly produce exactly one hit: your posting that I'm replying to 
now. The odds that that exact phrase was used in the past must be 
negligible. Searches merely for "home directories" or for "spaces" 
will turn up who knows how many million irrelevant hits. I might as 
well read the whole archive from beginning to end. Which, of course, 
I refuse to do. It's a lot less work for all concerned if someone who 
knows the 
directory simply answer the question. Putting the fix in the FAQ 
would be 
even better. Given that Windows has a tendency to generate such 
usernames and then Cygwin's insaller uses it by default without 
warning you 
first, lots of people are going to install Cygwin, read the FAQ, and 
see that it 
says this might cause a problem but not see what to do about it. I 
recommend that the FAQ's section on this be expanded to explain how 
to change this situation once it's already occurred. (If it hasn't 
been already; the version I have might be older.)



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