Cygwin compatibility for helm-open-file-with-default-tool

[mcarpenter]

What happened?

Tried to open a PDF using helm-open-file-with-default-tool under Cygwin.

It failed silently.

How to reproduce?

1. Using Cygwin on Windows
2. Install and run emacs-w32
3. Install helm.
4. In the scratch buffer invoke:

(helm-open-file-with-default-tool "/path/to/some/file.pdf")

Helm Version

Melpa or NonGnuElpa

Emacs Version

Emacs-29.1

OS

Other

Relevant backtrace (if possible)

No response

Minimal configuration

• I agree using a minimal configuration

[mcarpenter]

Hi,

Here's a quick fix:

--- a/helm-utils.el
+++ b/helm-utils.el
@@ -1071,7 +1071,9 @@ Assume regexp is a pcre based regexp."
                             "xdg-open")
                            ((or (eq system-type 'darwin) ;; Mac OS X
                                 (eq system-type 'macos)) ;; Mac OS 9
-                            "open"))
+                            "open")
+                          ((eq system-type 'cygwin)
+                           "cygstart"))
                      file))))

Some notes:

1. cygstart is shipped in the cygutils package. Although this package is in the Base category it is not installed by default.
2. Cygwin also provides xdg-open in the xdg-utils package, category X11, also not installed by default.
3. cygstart and xdg-open are largely equivalent.
4. I think Cygwin users are more likely to have cygutils installed since it has some other useful stuff and x11 is less relevant today. But this is not guaranteed.
5. A better fix would perhaps (a) check for both possibilities on Cygwin and (b) verify the availability of the returned helper for all cases. (Maybe factor out (defun helm-command-runner() ...) or so?). I'd be happy to contribute such a fn if you think that's worthwhile but fix as in diff above also fine for me.

(I also checked the other references to system-type in the repo and couldn't see any other similar cases affecting Cygwin).

[thierryvolpiatto]

Martin Carpenter ***@***.***> writes:

1. ( ) text/plain (*) text/html Hi, Here's a quick fix: --- a/helm-utils.el +++ b/helm-utils.el @@ -1071,7 +1071,9 @@ Assume regexp is a pcre based regexp." "xdg-open") ((or (eq system-type 'darwin) ;; Mac OS X (eq system-type 'macos)) ;; Mac OS 9 - "open")) + "open") + ((eq system-type 'cygwin) + "cygstart")) file))))

Thanks. PR welcome, I have no windows box to test such changes.

Some notes: 1. cygstart is shipped in the cygutils package. Although this package is in the Base category it is not installed by default. 2. Cygwin also provides xdg-open in the xdg-utils package, category X11, also not installed by default. 3. cygstart and xdg-open are largely equivalent. 4. I think Cygwin users are more likely to have cygutils installed since it has some other useful stuff and x11 is less relevant today. But this is not guaranteed. 5. A better fix would perhaps (a) check for both possibilities on Cygwin and (b) verify the availability of the returned helper for all cases. (Maybe factor out (defun helm-command-runner () ...) or so?). I'd be happy to contribute a fn as in (5) if you think that's worthwhile but fix as in diff above also fine for me.

Don't think we need something sophisticated here, only make the best tool taking precedence on the other, I know nothing about Cygwin unfortunately, so I trust the change you will make in this area. Thanks.

…

-- Thierry