On 05/08/2025 05:56, Brian Inglis via Cygwin-apps wrote:
On 2025-08-04 17:30, Matthew Sheets via Cygwin-apps wrote:
Are there two different versions of Cygwin.bat that Cygwin Setup could
create depending on the context in which Cygwin Setup is executed?
If Cygwin setup is being used to create a new installation, the
installed Cygwin.bat is fairly path independent:
@echo off
setlocal enableextensions
set TERM=
cd /d "%~dp0bin" && .\bash --login -i
However, if Cygwin setup is being executed for an already-existing
installation and restores a deleted Cygwin.bat, that restored
Cygwin.bat contains hard-coded paths:
@echo off
C:
chdir C:\Portable\Cygwin\arch-x86_64\bin
bash --login -i
I still had one of the latter installed from 2013!
If you look at one of the base packages:
$ cygcheck -l base-files
/etc/defaults/Cygwin.bat
...
/etc/postinstall/base-files-profile.sh
/etc/preremove/base-files-manifest.lst
/etc/preremove/base-files.sh
it provides defaults and sets them up in the postinstall script driven
by the manifest.
In our case, the ancient Cygwin.bat was always installed with a hard-
coded path by Cygwin setup and never replaced, by design!
I just updated it from /etc/defaults/ so it looks like your first version.
You could also rm /Cygwin.bat and rerun /etc/postinstall/base-files-
profile.sh, possibly with a .done suffix after Setup.
For a portable setup, I am intending to remove and wrap Cygwin.bat and
have _zero_ issue with Cygwin Setup restoring it (I was actually
hoping Cygwin Setup _did_ restore Cygwin.bat so that any updates to
Cygwin.bat could be incorporated), but the challenge here is that a
completely different Cygwin.bat that contains hard-coded paths is
created upon restoration. Is this file content difference expected?
Could the `cd /d "%~dp0bin"` syntax be used in both cases (in place of
the hardcoded paths)?
It has been and should be since at least 2016, when it was added to
base-files; previously it was installed by Cygwin Setup and never
updated if it existed:
https://cygwin.com/cgit/cygwin-apps/setup/tree/desktop.cc?
id=bf1d58#n163
Huh.
Well, a patch to setup either to remove that function (since it doesn't
seem to serve any useful purpose now), or modernize the batch file it
writes would be very welcome.
