1.3.22: TMPDIR Initialization

["Mark Moore" <mark dot moore at notlimited dot com>]

TWIMC:

 

I recently did a fresh install of Cygwin on a fresh install of Win2K (my HD blew a gasket L …).  Once the dust settled, I tried to issue the following command:

 

    perldoc perldoc

 

I was quite surprised to see that it didn’t work.  I received the following error message:

 

$ perldoc perldoc

Error in tempfile() using /XXXXXXXXXX: Parent directory (/) is not writable

 at /usr/bin/perldoc line 564

 

 

After hunting around for half a day, I got it cornered in the /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.0/File/Spec/cygwin.pm where the code makes an assumption that the TMPDIR environment variable points to a directory with write permission.  I’ll post a bug on the Perl site, but it seems this is a Cygwin setup problem as well…

 

A number of Unix ports assume TMPDIR points to an existing directory with full access to create/delete/read/write files and directories (e.g. Perl).  Shouldn’t the Cygwin setup ensure this is a valid assumption?

 

Easy fixes might be to simply set TMPDIR to $TEMP or $TMP, which appear to be defined as part of the regular Win2K installation, or hard code it to “/tmp” since that directory seems to be created as part of the Cygwin install.  (IMHO, the best would be to mount $TEMP as /tmp, and setenv TMPDIR=/tmp).

 

Either way, the temp directory should grant full r/w/m permission to all users for that directory (chmod 777 /tmp).  BTW, I tried the chmod fix, and it didn’t seem to stick.  The only way I could really change the permission was to use the Security tab on the folder Properties dialog.