Re: [Mingw-msys] expansion of / at start of command line argument in bash

[Keith Marshall <keithmarshall@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sunday 30 March 2008 17:15, James Kanze wrote:
> I downloaded the latest MSys a week or so ago; it didn't have
> bash, at least as such, so I also downloaded the version of bash
> from MinWG, and installed it in /usr/local/bin.

You should have sh.exe in /bin -- this is actually bash, but may be a v2 
release.  If you then downloaded the v3 update, which is recommended, 
then you should also install it in /bin.

> This is the shell I'm using.
> The problem I'm having is that bash is apparently expanding
> command line arguments that start with a /, i.e. if I invoke:
>    cl /help

This is by design; MSYS accepts UNIX paths, with the root representing 
the MSYS installation directory, (nominally c:/msys/1.0, as you have 
installed it), and it translates these to their native equivalents, so

> , the Microsoft compiler complains that it cannot find file
> c:/msys/1.0/help, 

This is exactly as you've asked it to do; compile a file called /help.

> rather than outputting its help.

You use UNIX syntax, in the MSYS shell, so to get the help, you use

  cl -help

> I wrote a  
> simple program, compiled it with cl, and found that this is what
> it actually sees as the first argument (or any command line
> argument).  This makes the shell close to unusable,

It is very usable, if you use it correctly.

> since / is the standard character for an option under Windows.  (cl
> will also accept -, but this is not true for all programs.)

If you do need to run a program which insists on `/', rather than accept 
`-' as the switchar, then you must double the `/'

  cl //help

This is documented, in the readme.rtf file which accompanies 
MSYS-1.0.10; if you have started out with the MSYS-1.0.11 preview, I'm 
not sure if you get this in the core package, but this question has 
been asked before.

Regards,
Keith.

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