windows paths in shebang lines

[Andrew DeFaria]

  On 01/23/2011 05:59 PM, Jeremy Bopp wrote:
> On 01/23/2011 03:47 PM, Rafael Kitover wrote:
>> When a script's shebang line has a windows path, rather than a cygwin
>> path, it does not work:
>>
>> rkitover@eeebox ~
>> $ head -1 /cygdrive/c/Perl64/site/bin/ack
>> #!C:\Perl64\bin\perl
>>
>> rkitover@eeebox ~
>> $ /cygdrive/c/Perl64/site/bin/ack --version
>> Can't open perl script "/cygdrive/c/Perl64/site/bin/ack": No such file
>> or directory
>>
>> On msys (msysGit) this works correctly:
>>
>> rkitover@EEEBOX ~
>> $ /c/Perl64/site/bin/ack --version
>> ack 1.94
>> Running under Perl 5.12.2 at C:\Perl64\bin\perl.exe
>>
>> Copyright 2005-2010 Andy Lester.
>>
>> This program is free software.  You may modify or distribute it
>> under the terms of the Artistic License v2.0.
>>
>> Any chance this could be fixed? This would be a very nice feature for
>> users of Strawberry Perl and similar.
> The problem is not that you're using a Windows path instead of a Cygwin
> path in the shebang line; although, that is not officially supported
> under Cygwin.  Rather, the problem is that the version of Perl being run
> as a result of that shebang line does not understand Cygwin paths.
> That's why you see this error:
>
> Can't open perl script "/cygdrive/c/Perl64/site/bin/ack": No such file
> or directory
>
> That's the Perl interpreter telling you that it doesn't understand the
> path that was given to it for the ack script, so Perl is running at this
> point which means that the shebang line is understood correctly.  You
> should probably go read about how shebang lines work in general, but the
> short and sweet is that the shebang line is the first part of a command
> line to be run where the last part is the command line used to run the
> file that contains the shebang line itself.  IOW, the command line used
> in your first example is ultimately:
>
> C:\Perl64\bin\perl /cygdrive/c/Perl64/site/bin/ack --version
>
> You have 3 potential solutions to your problem:
>
> 1) Run Perl explicitly with the Windows path to the script as an argument:
>    /cygdrive/c/Perl64/bin/perl C:/Perl64/site/bin/ack
>
> 2) Change into the C: drive and use a relative path to the ack script
> when you run it:
>    cd /cygdrive/c
>    Perl64/site/bin/ack
>
> 3) Change your cygdrive mount location to / so that the path to the ack
> script will be /c/Perl64/site/bin/ack under Cygwin.
>
> Option 3 is the real hack.  I think it should work because it appears in
> your successful example that the Perl you want to use is able to
> translate paths such as /c/path/to/something to C:/path/to/something
> internally.  By adjusting the cygdrive mount location to /, you will
> cause Cygwin to send a compatible path to Perl when you run the script
> as /c/Perl64/site/bin/ack.
>
> -Jeremy
>
My question would be: Why are you running a C:\Perl64\bin\perl.exe 
instead of just running /usr/bin/perl (AKA C:/Cygwin/bin/perl.exe)? IOW 
why are you not running Cygwin's Perl. My guess is that 
C:\Perl64\bin\perl.exe is some ActiveState based Perl and you'll only 
run into problems using that with a "Cygwin frame of mine". Just run 
Cygwin's Perl instead!
-- 
Andrew DeFaria <http://defaria.com>
Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.


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