On 13 August 2013 18:08, Oscar Benjamin <oscar.j.benjamin@gmail.com> wrote:

On 13 August 2013 17:33, Paul Moore <p.f.moore@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On another point you mention, Cygwin Python should be using Unix-style shell
> script wrappers, not Windows-style exes, surely? The whole point of Cygwin
> is that it emulates Unix, after all... So I don't see that as an argument
> either way.

So say I have a ~/bin directory where I put my scripts that I want to
be generally available. I install something with
python setup.py install --install-scripts=~/bin
so that the scripts/script-wrappers go in there because I want to be
able to always access that program under that name. Don't be fooled by
the unixy tilde: I'm running ordinary Windows Python in that command
in git-bash, not Cygwin. Now if that folder is on PATH while I am in
Cygwin I can run the program with the same name if an .exe wrapper was
added. I can't run it with the same name if it's a .py/,bat file
because Cygwin doesn't have the implicit strip-the-extension PATHEXT
feature and can't run .bat files.

Ah, OK, thanks for the clarification.

In that case I can see why you'd prefer exe wrappers (or maybe cygwin bash shell wrappers, or shell aliases...). Maybe an option to still use exe wrappers is worth it - but honestly, I'd say that in that context you probably have enough expertise to understand the issue and make your own solution relatively easily.

What about having in your .bashrc:

for prog in ls ~/bin/*.py; do

alias $(basename $prog .py)=$prog

done

(Excuse me if I got the precise details wrong there). OK, you need to rerun .bashrc if you add new scripts. It's not perfect. But it's not a showstopper either.

I do think, as I said before, that this needs some sort of policy-type PEP on the standard approach for wrapping scripts, with all the pros and cons of the various approaches documented and reviewed.

Paul