Unset TMP/TEMP in profile? (was Re: [ANNOUNCEMENT] [1.7] Updated: cygwin-1.7.0-67)

[Ken Brown]

On 3/7/2011 8:42 AM, Andy Koppe wrote:
> On 1 December 2009 09:15, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>> On Nov 30 20:53, Robert Pendell wrote:
>>> On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 6:37 PM, Angelo Graziosi wrote:
>>>> Robert Pendell wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> P.S. - On linux (when I tested) TEMP, TMP, and TMPDIR were not set and
>>>>> patch defaulted to /tmp.
>>>>
>>>> I noticed that too...
>>>>
>>>> Ken Brown wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> That's precisely why I suggested unsetting TEMP and TMP in /etc/profile.
>>>>> Then things should work as in linux.
>>>>
>>>> Indeed. But a question emerges: what does it happen if one starts a Windows
>>>> application, which needs TEMP or TMP, from Cygwin?
>>>>
>>>> For example, GSview (*) can view ps.bz2 or pdf.bz2 files uncompressing them
>>>> into $TEMP, so it fails if TEMP is not defined, and
>>>>
>>>> $ gsview foo.pdf.bz2
>>>>
>>>> is broken!
>>>>
>>>> This is only an example of problems which can emerge unsetting TEMP.
>>>>
>>>> Ciao,
>>>> Angelo.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Actually I had thought about that and I found that if you
>>> intentionally unset all the variables it defaults back to the system
>>> defined one which is dependent on the current user in Windows.
>>> Basically what TEMP and TMP is defined to in Windows itself.  This is
>>> like the behavior in Linux.
>>
>> I'm wondering if /etc/profile is actually the right place for unsetting
>> TMP and TEMP.  What about etc/defaults/etc/skel/.bashrc instead?  It
>> allows every user simple access to the setting of TMP and TEMP and it
>> could be seasoned with a user-visible comment.
>
> Reheating this old thread because the proposed base-files 4.0 makes a
> change here.
>
> In the current 3.9-3, TEMP and TMP are unset in ~/.bashrc, as
> suggested here by Corinna. Thing is, ~/.bashrc is only sourced for
> non-login shells, yet the default console/mintty/rxvt shortcuts all
> invoke bash as a login shell. In other words, this change might as
> well not have been made as far as the vast majority of users are
> concerned.

I don't think that's right.  The default ~/.bash_profile sources 
~/.bashrc, so the latter does get sourced for login shells.

Ken

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