[PATCH cygutils 1/1] cygstart: add 'runas' as option to elevate privileges like UAC

[Mark Geisert]

Hi Vadim,

On 8/8/2025 5:53 AM, Vadim (vadcx) via Cygwin-apps wrote:
> On 8/8/25 10:51, Mark Geisert wrote:
> 
>>> +    {"runas", 'r', POPT_ARG_NONE, NULL, 'r',
>>> +     "Short for: --action runas", NULL},
>>
>> I understand you're adding a new action selected by arg 'r'...
>>
>>>       {NULL, '\0', 0, NULL, 0, NULL, NULL}
>>>     };
>>> @@ -223,7 +226,7 @@ main (int argc, const char **argv)
>>>        "Display version information", NULL},
>>>       {"license", '\0', POPT_ARG_NONE, NULL, 'l',
>>>        "Display licensing information", NULL},
>>> -    {"reference", '\0', POPT_ARG_NONE, NULL, 'r',
>>> +    {"reference", '\0', POPT_ARG_NONE, NULL, 'W',
>>>        "Open MSDN reference for ShellExecute", NULL},
>>
>> ... and changing existing action 'r' to 'W'.  But the string 
>> "reference" needs to be changed to something starting with 'W' then.  
>> Did you have a word in mind when choosing 'W' as the new action?
>>
>> Alternatively, is there a word+action that better indicates what that 
>> command does?  Granted, it's a pretty obscure and complicated thing to 
>> reduce down to one word.
> 
> Correct, -r should invoke "runas". As far as I can tell after inspecting 
> these opt structs, this 5th argument (last letter on the line) is only 
> used to fetch the option in code. The usable short-hand argument is 2nd 
> (empty here).
> 
> So to avoid changing the current --reference option, I decided to rename 
> the internal letter to "W" as in "Web (reference)", but keep the long- 
> name. I found it would create less confusion than instead having option 
> -r not correspond to internal code 'r'. The letter 'M' is taken by     
> --maximize too.
> 
> In the end, it's just an unfortunate letter collision (I hope my 
> understanding is correct) and one has to give way or rename --reference 
> entirely (to --web ?). Giving "--action=runas" a different letter than 
> 'r' would make a really awful mnemonic in my opinion.

OK, I follow and agree with your reasoning.  I've applied your patches 
locally and built a cygutils-1.4.17-5 test release.  My usual upload 
workflow doesn't work anymore, likely due to the already-announced (on 
the cygwin-apps list) deprecation of same.  I need to work out how to 
accomplish the upload using current best practices.  Give me a bit of 
time please.
Regards,

..mark