Cygwin : Java Glossary

CygWin (Cygnus Systems Windows) [latin for swan]. Primarily Cygwin is a way to run Linux BASH (Bourne Again Shell) scripts under Windows so that you can use the same scripting in both Linux and Windows. It contains a ton of other stuff including: Aspell spell checker, Bison, C++, curses, CVS, EMACS (Extensible Macro System), Grep, OpenSSL, Python, TROFF (Typesetting Runoff), SSH…

Cygwin is a Linux-like environment for Windows. It consists of two parts: A DLL (Dynamic Link Library) (cygwin1.dll) which acts as a Linux emulation layer providing substantial Linux API (Application Programming Interface) functionality. A collection of tools, which provide Linux look and feel.

The Cygwin DLL works with all production versions of Windows since Windows 95, with the exception of Windows CE.

What Isn’t Cygwin?

Installing

Cygwin contains its own link.exe. Depending on the path, you will get the Cygwin link.exe or the Microsoft link.exe

Using Bash

Here is how you let up an environment variable in an ordinary Windows *.bat, *.btm or *.cmd script:

Rem Set and echo an environment variable pointing to drive W:
set SSD=W:
echo %SSD%
rem display the path
path
rem display the current directory
cd
rem -30-

Here is how you do the same thing in a Bash *.bsh script:

# Set and echo an environment variable pointing to drive W:
export SSD=/cygdrive/w
echo $SSD
# display the path
echo $PATH
# display the current directory
pwd
# -30-

Cygwin prefers POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface for Unix) style file names in Bash Scripts, e.g. C:\temp\something.txt ⇒ /cygdrive/c/temp/something.txt