Re: Windows support

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Jul 26, 2007, 15:43 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0707261638100.14781@racer.site>
In-Reply-To: <fcaeb9bf0707260807u476719e3rec2dcf5f780013c0@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

On Thu, 26 Jul 2007, Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy wrote:

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> I make MinGW busybox part of git for some reasons:
> 
> - Making a full MinGW busybox would take lots of time. I don't need
> busybox for Windows. What I need is a shell and enough POSIX utilities
> to run git shell scripts without any dependencies. Windows users
> (including myself when I have to use Windows) hate dependencies.

I think that if you succeed to compile ash on MinGW, the rest is easy.

> - I don't want MinGW busybox to be used outside of git (if it is
> installed separated from git), there are cygwin and msys already. I
> don't want to compete them. And I don't like conflicts (not sure
> though) because you have multiple UNIX emulations on the same system.

But you'd be my hero.

Installing Cygwin is often overkill if all I need is just a tiny shell with just enough POSIX tools to run my scripts.

Installing MinGW is painful. Not because of MinGW, but because there is no single installer for all I want. You need to install MinGW, MSYS, MSYS DTK, iconv, bash (because the default is to old), etc. etc.

With busybox it would be busybox.exe.

Show 6 quoted lines

> - Making ash part of git has an advantage that you could tune the
> shell to fit git. Earlier you had to replace find/sort with
> /usr/bin/find and /usr/bin/sort in git scripts to avoid Windows
> alternatives. I don't like that. If you have control over the shell,
> you could make it ignore whatever program out there and use your own
> ones. This one is not a strong point though.

I doubt that this is useful. We do want to support the other systems as well, so we have to kinda stick with the available workarounds.

> - MinGW busybox (or gitbox as I call it now) utilizes compat/mingw.c
> and other stuff like run-command.c... Making it separate (as source
> code) duplicates code for nothing.

It is not duplication.  It is forking.  Which is a good thing.

> - If you meant separating from git.exe binary, not from source code,
> then it's ok.

Yes. Although I see your point in making it a builtin "git-ash" that can be called without an extra fork(), using beginthread instead.

Ciao, Dscho