The Cygwin User Guide on path names

[Mark Hansen]

On 8/28/2016 12:57 PM, Linda Walsh wrote:
> Andrey Repin wrote:
>> Also, @ Linda, the string escaping is done by the shell before passing
>> arguments to the command, as I understand.
>> If I'm starting an application not from shell, the app, being a good citizen,
>> should not second-guess the arguments it is given.
> ---
> 	Absolutely.  Don't get me wrong.  I am NOT for removing
> functionality or compatibility.  If the Winpaths work for you
> in your situation, I am all for keeping them working!  No reason
> to break previous compatibility needlessly.  Way too often, developers
> are throwing away previous compat. because its convenient, to make
> it harder for the user to maintain & control their machine.
>
> 	I usually find the forward slashes easier to use because
> of the quoting issue -- as I used ls for an example.  Same would
> apply to diff though.  I.e. -- in bash, if you type
>
>   > diff C:\tmp\file1 C:\tmp\file2

But I wouldn't expect this to work, because I know the backslashes are going to
be interpreted by the shell. It's nothing to do with the application (diff in
this case). To use a command shell, you need to know what that shell does.

When using Cygwin, I use paths like C:/tmp/file1 or /cygdrive/c/tmp/file1.
Never C:\tmp\file1 (unless I'm quoting/escaping the backslashes as needed).




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