Re: windows 7, cygwin 1.7.1, zsh, and HIST_SAVE_BY_COPY

[Peter Stephenson <pws@xxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:19:09 -0800 (PST)
"S. Cowles" <scowles@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> i've run into a problem that i've not seen, before.  i haven't seen any 
> mention on the list of this; if i missed it, please pass this over.
> 
> on windows 7, under cygwin 1.7.1, i'm guessing something akin to file 
> locking is causing the following:
> 
> exec /bin/zsh -l
> can't rename /home/user/.zsh_hist/zsh_host_user_picmar.new to $HISTFILE
> 
> when i unsetopt HIST_SAVE_BY_COPY, there is no error and session 
> initialization proceeds with no problems.
> 
> i've not seen such behavior on windows xp/sp2 or xp/sp3 with cygwin.  is 
> this perhaps a new phenomenon in win7?

There is a problem with Cygwin 1.7 owing to lack of support for Unix-style
hard links.  There was some discussion in December in the thread "Unable to
read history on latest Cygwin" on both the -users and -workers lists (see
http://www.zsh.org/mla/).  I'm not sure if this is related to what you're
seeing, but it might be.  There's no definitive patch for this at the
moment.

-- 
Peter Stephenson <pws@xxxxxxx>            Software Engineer
Tel: +44 (0)1223 692070                   Cambridge Silicon Radio Limited
Churchill House, Cambridge Business Park, Cowley Road, Cambridge, CB4 0WZ, UK


Member of the CSR plc group of companies. CSR plc registered in England and Wales, registered number 4187346, registered office Churchill House, Cambridge Business Park, Cowley Road, Cambridge, CB4 0WZ, United Kingdom