This is the mail archive of the cygwin mailing list for the Cygwin project.


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]
Other format: [Raw text]

Re: Side-by-side configuration is incorrect reported as permission denied


On 08/13/2012 07:42 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
There's a difference between cmd and Cygwin.  Cmd is a shell, Cygwin is
just the underlying shared lib providing a generic API.
OK so bash...
Ok so bash what?
You were saying cmd is a shell and Cygwin is a shared lib. So then perhaps the responsibility should fall to bash - a shell...
If an error occurs, it's the shell's responsibility to print an error
message in the first place.  All messages printed by Cygwin are not
controllable by the calling application.  Therefore we usually only
print messages from the DLL if something very serious happens from the
DLLs perspective.  Some arbitrary Windows error code returned from
CreateProcess is usually not something actually serious.  There was
just "some" reason that an application couldn't be started.
IMHO "some" reason that the user should be alerted about. How is it
helpful to the end user to suppress the error message?
Huh?  Somehow you swapping cause and effect.  There is no "suppressed"
error message.  Generating an error message is the task of the shell in
the first place.
There was an error message that cmd showed that bash did not. To me that's suppression.
It's not that the OS generates an error message and cmd lets it slip
through while Cygwin (or bash) "suppress" it.  It's the CreateProcess
call which generates an error code ERROR_SXS_CANT_GEN_ACTCTX and cmd
printing the connected error message, just like bash gets an error code
EACCES and prints the connected error message "Permission denied".
Plumbing and mechanics aside, I'm just saying the user should be told the underlying problem. If ERROR_SXS_CANT_GEN_ACTCTX is the error code could ya at least print that as a string? It would give the user a fighting change and finding a solution...
Also, where do you draw the border?  Which windows error code is serious
enough to justify a (pretty intrusive!) error message from the underlying
library and which isn't?
I would draw the border at "if there's an error message".
Again, cause and effect turned upside down.
Not really. You seem stuck in thinking in only error codes - I'm thinking in solutions, regardless of the mechanics to get there. IOW the goal is to inform the user not only that an error occurred but what that errors was so that the user can fix it. How you accomplish that is not important (to me - speaking as an end user).

(Note: I understand the underlying issues somewhat - I'm just giving you a user's perspective).
As cgf pointed out, Windows has zillions of error codes.  We wouldn't
want to generate the same number of POSIX-like error codes.  It wouldn't
make a lot of sense since POSIX applications only test for a limited,
expected number of error codes, and it might break things.
I was talking error *messages* not error *codes*.
Again, cause and effect turned upside down.
I don't think so.
--
Andrew DeFaria <http://defaria.com>
Why do you park in a driveway and drive on a parkway?


-- Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/ Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]