On Tue, Aug 22, 2017 at 10:15:20PM +0200, Johannes Schindelin wrote: > Hi, > > On Fri, 18 Aug 2017, Jonathan Nieder wrote: > > > Mike Hommey wrote[1]: > > > On Fri, Aug 18, 2017 at 03:06:37PM -0700, Jonathan Nieder wrote: > > >> Mike Hommey wrote: > > > > >>> The reason for the <helper>:: prefix is that it matches the <helper>:: > > >>> prefix used for remote helpers. > > >>> > > >>> Now, there are a few caveats: > > [...] > > >>> - msys likes to completely fuck up command lines when they contain ::. > > >>> For remote helpers, the alternative that works is > > >>> <helper>://<host>/etc. > > >> > > >> Hm --- is there a bug already open about this (e.g. in the Git for > > >> Windows project or in msys) where I can read more? > > > > > > It's entirely an msys problem. Msys has weird rules to translate between > > > unix paths and windows paths on the command line, and botches everything > > > as a consequence. That's by "design". > > > > > > http://www.mingw.org/wiki/Posix_path_conversion > > > > > > (Particularly, see the last two entries) > > > > > > That only happens when calling native Windows programs from a msys > > > shell. > > > > Cc-ing the Git for Windows mailing list as an FYI. > > > > I have faint memories that some developers on that project have had to > > delve deep into Msys path modification rules. It's possible they can > > give us advice (e.g. about <helper>::<url> having been a bad choice of > > syntax in the first place :)). > > I think it is safe to assume that :: is not part of any Unix-y path. That > is why the MSYS2 runtime does not try to play games with it by converting > it to a Windows path. > > (And indeed, I just tested this, an argument of the form > "a::file://b/x/y/z" is not converted to a "Windows path")
Note that there are people out there using msys, *and* git for windows, although I don't know if such people exist outside Mozilla. Mike