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Re: Makefile portability

From Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com>
Subject Re: Makefile portability
Date 2011-05-02 23:49 +0100
Message-Id <pan.2011.05.02.22.48.46.625000@nowhere.com>
Newsgroups comp.unix.programmer
References <dd51ecd2-2a42-4338-bc3b-eb2adefe1924@r6g2000vbz.googlegroups.com> <4db9c0f9$0$11427$a729d347@news.telepac.pt> <pan.2011.04.30.17.03.22.860000@nowhere.com> <87aaf5i8a3.fsf@sapphire.mobileactivedefense.com>
Organization Zen Internet

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On Mon, 02 May 2011 13:41:56 +0100, Rainer Weikusat wrote:

>> On Windows, using a Unix shell is usually a particularly bad idea, one of
>> the main reasons for which is that the Unix shell treats the Windows
>> directory separator character (backslash) as an escape character.
> 
> The person who added hierarchical filenames to MS-DOG version 2 chose
> to use the UNIX(*)/C escape character as default directory separator
> in 198x. This was a particularly bad idea, but the path separator
> character was actually configurable for (some versions of) DOS and
> (current versions of) Windows support both / and \.

Most of Windows supports both / and \, but many standard command-line
utilities use / for indicating flags (like Unix uses a dash). This
convention was inherited from CP/M, with which DOS was intended to be
backward-compatible.

But unlike Unix, flags don't have to be preceded by whitespace (a
DOS/Windows command line is just a string, not a list of strings; parsing
the command line into "char **argv" is left up to the individual program).
So you can't reliably use / as the directory separator when passing
filenames to external commands.

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Thread

Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-04-25 04:54 -0700
  Re: Makefile portability Leclerc <gordan.sikic.remove@this.inet.hr> - 2011-04-26 08:51 +0200
    Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-04-26 04:25 -0700
    Re: Makefile portability Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-04-26 16:18 +0100
      Re: Makefile portability William Ahern <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2011-04-26 11:19 -0700
        Re: Makefile portability Jonathan de Boyne Pollard <J.deBoynePollard-newsgroups@NTLWorld.COM> - 2011-04-27 18:53 +0100
          Re: Makefile portability "Charlie Gibbs" <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2011-04-27 14:14 -0800
            Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-04-30 01:07 -0700
              Re: Makefile portability Jonathan de Boyne Pollard <J.deBoynePollard-newsgroups@NTLWorld.COM> - 2011-04-30 13:45 +0100
            Re: Makefile portability Jonathan de Boyne Pollard <J.deBoynePollard-newsgroups@NTLWorld.COM> - 2011-04-30 13:14 +0100
            Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-04-28 00:02 -0700
              Re: Makefile portability Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2011-04-28 20:43 +0100
                Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-04-28 13:57 -0700
                Re: Makefile portability Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2011-04-29 11:18 +0100
                Re: Makefile portability Jonathan de Boyne Pollard <J.deBoynePollard-newsgroups@NTLWorld.COM> - 2011-04-29 20:43 +0100
                Re: Makefile portability Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2011-04-30 11:38 +0100
              Re: Makefile portability and file utility programs Jonathan de Boyne Pollard <J.deBoynePollard-newsgroups@NTLWorld.COM> - 2011-04-29 20:27 +0100
                Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-04-29 15:26 -0700
                Re: Makefile portability Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-04-29 23:45 +0100
                Re: Makefile portability Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2011-04-30 11:26 +0100
      Re: Makefile portability Leclerc <gordan.sikic.remove@this.inet.hr> - 2011-04-27 09:28 +0200
  Re: Makefile portability Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-04-26 11:28 -0700
    Re: Makefile portability Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-04-26 21:41 +0100
      Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-04-26 23:17 -0700
        Re: Makefile portability Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-04-27 14:08 +0100
      Re: Makefile portability Leo Havmøller <rtxleh@nospam.nospam> - 2011-04-27 13:15 +0200
        Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-04-27 05:50 -0700
          Re: Makefile portability Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2011-04-28 20:36 +0100
            Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-04-28 14:12 -0700
              Re: Makefile portability Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2011-04-29 11:03 +0100
                Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-04-29 09:30 -0700
      Re: Makefile portability Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-04-27 15:08 -0700
        Re: Makefile portability Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-04-27 15:17 -0700
          Re: Makefile dependency graphs gordonb.d36yw@burditt.org (Gordon Burditt) - 2011-04-30 02:02 -0500
            Re: Makefile dependency graphs Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-04-30 00:36 -0700
          Re: Makefile dependency graphs Michael Press <rubrum@pacbell.net> - 2011-04-30 01:13 -0700
            Re: Makefile dependency graphs William Ahern <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2011-04-30 11:30 -0700
              Re: Makefile dependency graphs Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-04-30 15:44 -0700
              Re: Makefile dependency graphs Michael Press <rubrum@pacbell.net> - 2011-05-03 11:48 -0700
          Re: Makefile dependency graphs Jonathan de Boyne Pollard <J.deBoynePollard-newsgroups@NTLWorld.COM> - 2011-04-30 12:59 +0100
          Re: Makefile dependency graphs Jonathan de Boyne Pollard <J.deBoynePollard-newsgroups@NTLWorld.COM> - 2011-04-29 02:55 +0100
            Re: Makefile dependency graphs William Ahern <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2011-04-28 19:52 -0700
              Re: Makefile dependency graphs Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-04-29 02:10 -0700
                Re: Makefile dependency graphs Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-04-29 20:59 +0100
                Re: Makefile dependency graphs Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-04-29 15:21 -0700
                Re: Makefile dependency graphs Jonathan de Boyne Pollard <J.deBoynePollard-newsgroups@NTLWorld.COM> - 2011-04-29 20:08 +0100
                Re: Makefile dependency graphs Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-04-29 15:08 -0700
                Re: Makefile dependency graphs Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-04-29 16:11 -0700
              Re: Makefile dependency graphs William Ahern <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2011-04-29 16:03 -0700
                Re: Makefile dependency graphs Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-04-29 16:48 -0700
                Re: Makefile dependency graphs Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-04-29 16:54 -0700
  Re: Makefile portability Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2011-04-28 20:33 +0100
    Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-04-28 14:20 -0700
    Re: Makefile portability Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-04-30 18:03 +0100
      Re: Makefile portability William Ahern <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2011-04-30 12:01 -0700
      Re: Makefile portability Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2011-05-01 12:33 +0100
        Re: Makefile portability Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-05-02 03:44 +0100
          Re: Makefile portability William Ahern <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2011-05-01 21:27 -0700
          Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-05-02 00:11 -0700
      Re: Makefile portability Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-05-02 13:41 +0100
        Re: Makefile portability Freedom on the Oceans <alex.buell@munted.org.uk> - 2011-05-02 14:36 +0100
          Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-05-02 08:09 -0700
        Re: Makefile portability Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-05-02 23:49 +0100
          Re: Makefile portability Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-05-03 10:41 +0100
            Re: Makefile portability Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-05-05 08:30 +0100

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