Re: [msysGit] Re: [PATCH bc/connect-plink] t5601-clone: remove broken and pointless check for plink.exe

From: Erik Faye-Lund <kusmabite@gmail.com>
Date: Aug 12, 2015, 11:58 UTC
Message-ID: <CABPQNSZHtAKbe6JwxRoK3LpCabfp6r2_kTmF1qokObt_yKnSDg@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <866a41f50ef9b4807da72576a4bca717@www.dscho.org>

On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 1:07 PM, Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:

Show 17 quoted lines

> Hi Johannes,
>
> On 2015-08-11 22:51, Johannes Sixt wrote:
>> Invoking plink requires special treatment, and we have support and even
>> test cases for the commands 'plink' and 'tortoiseplink'. We also support
>> .exe variants for these two and there is a test for 'plink.exe'.
>>
>> On Windows, however, where support for plink.exe would be relevant, the
>> test case fails because it is not possible to execute a file with a .exe
>> extension that is actually not a binary executable---it is a shell
>> script in our test. We have to disable the test case on Windows.
>
> Oh how would I wish you were working on Git for Windows even *just* a bit *with* me. At least I would wish for a more specific description of the development environment, because it sure as hell is not anything anybody can download and install as easily as Git for Windows' SDK.
>
> FWIW Git for Windows has this patch (that I wanted to contribute in due time, what with being busy with all those tickets) to solve the problem mentioned in your patch in a different way:
>
> https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/commit/2fff4b54a0d4e5c5e2e4638c9b0739d3c1ff1e45

Yuck. On Windows, it's the extension of a file that dictates what kind of file it is (and if it's executable or not), not the contents. If we get a shell script written with the ".exe"-prefix, it's considered as an invalid executable by the system. We should consider it the same way, otherwise we're on the path to user-experience schizophrenia.

I'm not sure I consider this commit a step in the right direction.