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X-Authentication-Warning: slinky.cs.nyu.edu: pechtcha owned process doing -bs
Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 10:03:18 -0500 (EST)
From: Igor Pechtchanski <pechtcha AT cs DOT nyu DOT edu>
Reply-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: cannot make a directory called "aux"
In-Reply-To: <4027903C.306D9BDA@dessent.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.56.0402090936510.22139@slinky.cs.nyu.edu>
References: <loom DOT 20040209T070052-877 AT post DOT gmane DOT org> <4027903C DOT 306D9BDA AT dessent DOT net>
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On Mon, 9 Feb 2004, Brian Dessent wrote:

> Troy Hicks wrote:
>
> > This is a strange problem.
>
> 'aux' is a reserved word, along with 'com', 'lpt', 'con', etc. which
> dates back to the days of DOS when you'd "copy filename.txt lpt1:" to
> print something.  So, you can't use it as a filename.
>
> This is also in the FAQ:  http://cygwin.com/faq/faq_4.html#SEC59
>
> Brian

Starting with version 1.5.0, Cygwin provides a special "managed" mount
mode that encodes, among other things, special names (including "aux") so
that they can be used in Cygwin.  Note that this encoding will *not* make
these names available to Windows programs.  Also note that this mode is
still experimental, and has to be set for a directory before it's
populated.  There is no easy way to convert an existing directory to
managed mode (other than re-populating it).

For more details, see the original announcements at
<http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2003-07/msg00248.html> and
<http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-announce/2003-07/msg00019.html>.  There are
also discussion threads, some from as far back as 2002, outlining the
possible problems with this approach (Google for "cygwin aux" or "cygwin
managed mount" to find them).
	Igor
-- 
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     |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'		Igor Pechtchanski, Ph.D.
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