[boost] Re: defined(__CYGWIN__) test in boost.filesystem

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-12-01 16:20:57

Beman Dawes <bdawes_at_[hidden]> writes:

> At 08:33 PM 11/29/2003, David Abrahams wrote:
>
>  >Jeremy Maitin-Shepard <jbms_at_[hidden]> writes:
>  >...
>  >> I suppose it is partially a matter of user preferences.
>  >
>  >I'd put it more strongly than that.
>  >
>  >> My impression though was that one of the purposes of cygwin is to
>  >> provide some amount of POSIX support, and that c: can by accessed at
>  >> /cygdrive/c, for example.
>  >>
>  >> With Windows paths, calling "complete" on a cygwin path like
>  >> "/cygdrive/c" will bring unexpected results.
>  >>
>  >> It seems though that at least some Windows users use cygwin for
>  >> development purposes primarily for a better shell, rather than for
>  >> POSIX support, and thus expect to use standard Windows paths.
>  >
>  >In fact, the cygwin filesystem view, with the drives at
>  >/cygdrive/[a-z], is its primary way of dealing with paths.  All of the
>  >cygwin tools support it.  Some additionally support Windows paths, but
>  >not all - that should be considered a secondary/optional approach.
>  >For example, scp needs colons as part of its syntax for remote access,
>  >so:
>  >
>  >       $ scp c:/tmp/fu .
>  >       ssh: c: no address associated with name
>
> I guess the problem is that Boost.Filesystem doesn't currently have
> a compilation mode that says "compile this to target the cygwin
> filesystem".
>
> Just using defined(__CYGWIN__) doesn't work, since it gets defined
> for all gcc compiles (at least if cygwin is installed on the
> machine).

Not if you're passing -mno-cygwin or using MinGW directly.

> The test suite would have to be worked over to provide cygwin
> filesystem test cases. Ugh!

Why?

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com