clean.cmd has `del ~` which is dangerous

Line 13 in 0dff43b

del *~*

I wanted to build the book with solutions.tex, so using Windows I installed MinTex and ran the build (clean.cmd followed by compile.cmd).

I noticed that not only were the solutions absent, but several later chapters were missing.

On investigation I saw that the clean has del *~*... so does the Bash one (rm *~*), but in Windows the *~* bit is very dangerous because of short filenames: any file that has more than the standard DOS 8.3 characters gets a short name associated with it, containing a tilde. This is normally invisible, but it's a gotcha when wildcarding with tildes.

To see this in action, let's look at the output of dir /x *~* on a fresh clone:

01/13/2021  02:03                75 GITIGN~1     .gitignore
01/13/2021  02:03               717 ACKNOW~1.TEX acknowledgments.tex
01/13/2021  02:03            15,605 CHAPTE~1.TEX chapter10.tex
01/13/2021  02:03            26,527 CHAPTE~2.TEX chapter11.tex
01/13/2021  02:03            10,739 CHAPTE~3.TEX chapter12.tex
01/13/2021  02:03            10,289 CHAPTE~4.TEX chapter13.tex
01/13/2021  02:03             9,227 CHB685~1.TEX chapter14.tex
01/13/2021  02:03             1,442 CONTRI~1     contribute
01/13/2021  02:03             4,209 INTROD~1.TEX introduction.tex
01/13/2021  02:03            63,378 SOLUTI~1.TEX solutions.tex

del *~* will delete every single one of those files. If you're unlucky enough to have the .git not hidden (say after a copy) it'll try to delete that too (as it's short name is GIT~1). The subsequent build will be missing key elements.

I'm not sure what this is supposed to be matching (perhaps ~filename.ext temp files?) but *~* should NOT be present in clean.cmd

Without that del *~* line things work very normally, and I can generate the book with all the chapters and the solutions.

Hi Martin, thanks for the suggestion. I do not have a windows machine and I never really used that file. Cheers Fabrizio

…

On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 11:12 AM Martin Falatic ***@***.***> wrote: https://github.com/fabriziotappero/Free-Range-VHDL-book/blob/0dff43bbfd8d0ede77acc284730241209854cb0d/clean.cmd#L13 I wanted to build the book with solutions.tex, so using Windows I installed MinTex and ran the build (clean.cmd followed by compile.cmd). I noticed that not only were the solutions absent, but several later chapters were missing. On investigation I saw that the clean has del *~*... so does the Bash one (rm *~*), but in Windows the *~* bit is very dangerous because of *short filenames*: any file that has more than the standard DOS 8.3 characters gets a short name associated with it, containing a tilde. This is normally invisible, but it's a gotcha when wildcarding with tildes. To see this in action, let's look at the output of dir /x *~* on a fresh clone: 01/13/2021 02:03 75 GITIGN~1 .gitignore 01/13/2021 02:03 717 ACKNOW~1.TEX acknowledgments.tex 01/13/2021 02:03 15,605 CHAPTE~1.TEX chapter10.tex 01/13/2021 02:03 26,527 CHAPTE~2.TEX chapter11.tex 01/13/2021 02:03 10,739 CHAPTE~3.TEX chapter12.tex 01/13/2021 02:03 10,289 CHAPTE~4.TEX chapter13.tex 01/13/2021 02:03 9,227 CHB685~1.TEX chapter14.tex 01/13/2021 02:03 1,442 CONTRI~1 contribute 01/13/2021 02:03 4,209 INTROD~1.TEX introduction.tex 01/13/2021 02:03 63,378 SOLUTI~1.TEX solutions.tex *del *~* will delete every single one of those files.* If you're unlucky enough to have the .git not hidden (say after a copy) it'll try to delete that too (as it's short name is GIT~1). The subsequent build will be missing key elements. I'm not sure what this is *supposed* to be matching (perhaps ~filename.ext temp files?) but *~* should NOT be present in clean.cmd Without that del *~* line things work very normally, and I can generate the book with all the chapters *and* the solutions. — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#39>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ACEONLU7W3ISYF2GHM7ITZDSZVWYRANCNFSM4WAR2TLA> .

The script has been fixed