Mail Archives: cygwin/1998/12/05/18:35:47
I'm responding to this thread only to clear up a misconception by Jonathan,
Jack A Walker, and perhaps others. The answer to the original question is
not really stated in the FAQ (although it should be) but is found in the
mail archives. I'll reiterate some of it here for posterity.
While the "EA DATA. SF" file is used by OS/2, it is also a file used by
CYGWIN if the "ntea" switch is set in the CYGWIN environment variable.
The switch is not set by default. If the switch is set, Cygwin stores
information about file and directory permissions and it is possible to
alter those permissions with chmod. Without the switch set, none of this
information is stored and therefore it cannot be manipulated by Cygwin
tools. On NTFS file systems, setting this switch enables this permission
functionality at no obvious cost/detriment to the user. On FAT file systems,
this functionality comes at the price of the "EA DATA. SF" file in the root
directory of the partition/drive that the files Cygwin manipulates reside
on. This includes floppies. While the existence of the file on FAT
partitions preserves the permissions that Cygwin sets and enables that
functionality, the file quickly grows to a large size. Its also worthwhile
to note that the file is "locked" by the O/S, so it is not possible to
delete it while in Windows.
Those people who work on FAT partitions and don't need the permissions
information should make sure they have not set "ntea" in CYGWIN.
Larry Hall lhall AT rfk DOT com
RFK Partners, Inc. (781) 239-1053
8 Grove Street (781) 239-1655 - FAX
Wellesley, MA 02482-7797 http://www.rfk.com
At 12:55 PM 12/4/98 -0500, Jonathan Pryor wrote:
>Are you running OS/2?
>"EA DATA.SF" contains OS/2 long file name information for FAT
>disks under OS/2.
>
>NT doesn't make any use of this, so it should be safe to
>delete it, though:
> 1) If you're still running OS/2, you'll lose your long
> file names
> 2) If you're not running OS/2, how did you get the file?
>
>You might want to open it in a text editor, and see what it
>contains...
>
> - Jon
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: owner-gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com [mailto:owner-gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com]On
>> Behalf Of Mike-Ford AT sonoma-systems DOT com
>> Sent: Thursday, December 03, 1998 3:43 PM
>> To: gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com
>> Subject: EA DATA.SF file on NT
>>
>>
>>
>> Can anyone tell me what will happen if I delete my 450 Meg EA DATA.SF
>> file?
>>
>> -
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>-
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