[cmake-developers] Git for windows patch

[Paul Smith]

On Fri, 2016-01-15 at 10:05 -0500, Shawn Waldon wrote:
> Looking at the git installation, there is another executable
> "C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\cmd\git.exe", but I have never pointed
> CMake at that one.  What is the difference between the two?  I can
> change the patch to use the other one, but I'd like to understand why
> it is necessary.

There is no difference between them.  When you install Git for Windows
the installer gives a choice of three different ways to set up %PATH%.

One way is to not add anything to %PATH%: then git is only available
from within the Git bash shell not from within command.com shell.

The second way is to make git, only (plus a few helpers like gitk,
start-ssh-agent, etc.) available on %PATH%: then git is available from
command.com but none of the other UNIX tools like find, diff, etc. are
available from command.com (only from Git shell).  In this install
method the <GitHome>\cmd directory is added to %PATH%.

The last way is to allow git plus all the ming32 versions of UNIX tools
that come with Git to be available to command.com.  In this install
method both <gitHome>\cmd AND <gitHome>\usr\bin are added to %PATH%.

The existence of <gitHome>\bin is there only for backward
-compatibility, because some people coming from older versions of Git
for Windows might be referencing it.  It shouldn't be used anymore by
modern installs (it contains bash.exe and sh.exe both of which are in
\usr\bin, and git.exe which is in \cmd).