Re: mingw and same-inode

[Jim Meyering]

Eric Blake wrote:
> According to Jim Meyering on 9/25/2009 5:59 AM:
>> When I see the tentacles of this change reaching so deeply into the core
>> of gnulib and coreutils, I have to question whether it is worthwhile
>> to accommodate mingw's lack of inode numbers.
>>
>> Opinions?
>
> Raise this issue to the mingw list, and see if they can start populating
> st_ino in the same way that cygwin does?

That sounds like the best approach.
If someone is interested enough to pursue it.

> Write a gnulib module that fixes
> mingw [f]stat to populate a reasonable st_ino?  Inode numbers really are
> core to a number of Unix programs, and their absence on mingw is a huge
> portability sticking point.  I still plan on respinning this patch to at
> least solve some of the easier issues (such as getting the linkat() unit
> test to pass successfully), but I'm starting to thing that porting
> same_name to mingw is a lost cause unless someone else steps in and helps
> write the patches.

Supporting mingw is good from portability and exposure standpoints,
but when accommodating a fundamental lack like this puts a serious dent
in maintainability, efficiency or even "mere" aesthetics of the code,
then we have to draw the line.