From: jont AT harlequin DOT co DOT uk (Jon Thackray)
Subject: Re: Sorting environment
10 Apr 1997 12:06:29 -0700
Approved: cygnus DOT gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com
Distribution: cygnus
Message-ID: <20894.9704101126.cygnus.gnu-win32@dedekind.cam.harlequin.co.uk>
References: <24837 DOT 9704091211 AT dedekind DOT cam DOT harlequin DOT co DOT uk>
	<334BEE15 DOT 170D AT netcom DOT com>
Original-To: Jim Balter <jqb AT netcom DOT com>
Original-Cc: Jon Thackray <jont AT harlequin DOT co DOT uk>, gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com
In-Reply-To: <334BEE15.170D@netcom.com>
Original-Sender: owner-gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com

Jim Balter writes:
 > Jon Thackray wrote:
 > > 
 > > I belive it to be part of the spec of CreateProcess that the
 > > environment it is passed should be sorted.
 > 
 > The CreateProcess documentation does not require this.
 > In fact, since the environment block can be in Unicode,
 > the sort order isn't even defined.

Quoting from the Oct 96 MSDN docs for CreateProcess, near the end of the
"Remarks" section:

  If the current directory on drive C is \MSVC\MFC, there is an
  environment variable called =C: whose value is C:\MSVC\MFC. As noted in
  the previous description of lpEnvironment, such current directory
  information for a system's drives does not automatically propagate to a
  new process when the CreateProcess function's lpEnvironment parameter is
  non-NULL. An application must manually pass the current directory
  information to the new process. To do so, the application must
  explicitly create the =X environment variable strings, get them into
  alphabetical order (because Windows NT and Windows 95 use a sorted
  environment), and then put them into the environment block specified by
  lpEnvironment. Typically, they will go at the front of the environment
  block, due to the previously mentioned environment block sorting.
-
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