Re: Windows 29.1 error - xargs MIA

[JF]

Thank you both for your suggestions.

I did install grep and was able to make 600 substitutions in 43 files in one swell foop - very cool.

John.

> I did that, and included the "bin" folder in my PATH.
> Now I get "search failed with status 0: xargs: grep: no such file or directory" which my Google search suggests may have something to do with having
> filenames with embedded blanks??
> John

You're still missing some things.

One of the ways I've found to get almost all the helper utils emacs needs in one hit is to install Git for Windows and do something like

(setenv "PATH" (concat "C:\\Program Files\\Git\\usr\\bin;" (getenv "PATH")))
(push "C:/Program Files/Git/usr/bin" exec-path)

at the start of .emacs (or site customisation files).

The main thing I miss are the man pages. The only actual util I sometimes use that isn't in there is a spell checker.

Cheers,

...

>
> One of the ways I've found to get almost all the helper utils emacs needs in one hit is to install Git for Windows and do something like
>
> (setenv "PATH" (concat "C:\\Program Files\\Git\\usr\\bin;" (getenv "PATH")))
> (push "C:/Program Files/Git/usr/bin" exec-path)

FWIW, I don't recommend setting PATH from within Emacs, because that
could mean the programs you invoke have a different notion about PATH
than Emacs does.  Instead, change the PATH outside Emacs using the
Windows settings, then Emacs will inherit that value of PATH when it
starts.

Also, beware: the programs in Git/usr/bin are MSYS programs, not
native Windows programs.  They all depend on MSYS DLL, and behave
slightly differently as regards to signals, pipes, and console I/O.
This could cause subtle problems when using them from a native (MinGW)
Windows build of Emacs.  So my advice is to install MinGW ports of the
required utilities, not MSYS ports that are part of Git for Windows.

> The main thing I miss are the man pages.

You need a port of Groff and a man program/clone.

> The only actual util I sometimes use that isn't in there is a spell checker.

What about Texinfo?