The Cygwin User Guide on path names

Ken Brown kbrown@cornell.edu
Tue Aug 23 16:25:00 GMT 2016


The section on path names in the user guide 
(https://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using.html#using-pathnames) strikes me 
as misleading when it says in the first sentence, "Cygwin supports both 
POSIX- and Win32-style paths."  I think it would be better to say "The 
Cygwin DLL" and to emphasize that Cygwin applications do *not* 
necessarily support Win32 paths.  See

   https://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2016-08/msg00409.html

for a recent example where this has come up.  It's also come up in 
connection with git and emacs and probably many other applications.

The documentation also says, "The usage of Win32 paths, though possible, 
is deprecated...."  I wonder if this should be strengthened to say 
something like, "The usage of Win32 paths, though possible, is strongly 
deprecated and may be removed in a future release of Cygwin."

I'll be glad to prepare a documentation patch.

Ken

--
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



More information about the Cygwin mailing list