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Cygwin is inconsistent with file locations
In cygwin, functions which find the location of libraries and packages return unix-style paths -- in fact almost everything returns Unix style paths.
However, Exec demands windows style paths, so passing these paths to Exec fails.
We have an undocumented function ExternalFilename which (currently incompletely) maps Unix paths to windows paths, but currently only GRAPE uses it.
I am not sure how to cut this knot. I want to figure out which parts of GAP currently accept windows paths, and which bits accept Unix paths (any help or experiences from cygwin users greatly appreciated!).
The smallest fix would be to either make all packages use ExternalFilename, or introduce an option to Exec/Process to make them use a Unix shell (which would be the default on Unix). However there may be a better way.
IIRC, the reason for the Windows style pathnames is that Exec calls the Windows shell command.com. If we are just porting from Unix, a solution that includes a shell and calls this would probably satisfactory.
What I don't know is if anyone under Windows actually wants to call Windows programs with Exec (and thus a version with command should be preserved, say as ExecWindows.
Generically there also is the question in how to deal with Windows style filenames if user calls (say) PrintTo("C:\Documents\Homework\MyFile.txt") (and one can even argue about CRLF if one wants -- not that I do.)
I'm going to investigate -- actually running windows program with the cygwin shell works fine, unless someone is trying to run a cmd built-in (like dir)
I've assigned this to GAP 4.10.0 milestone to ensure that this will not fall below radar.
Unfortunately I think this issue still fell below the radar (likely because nobody actually pays attention to milestones, and we have no clear process and how they should be used resp. watched).
But perhaps @ChrisJefferson actually did make some progress, despite there being no updates here?
This is still on the 4.12.0 milestone, but I am not sure if that makes sense -- @ChrisJefferson care to comment?
When I make the new release I will sweep over all the 'windows' tagged things
This is fixed in the latest windows releases. I do want to make a pass over all packages -- I don't know the best way to test all the packages with the release, and if this would like up well with the next GAPDays, or I should just do manually(ish) just to check they all seem to work.