Provide property for cvs binary

I vote against. I've never had such long PATHS on windows.

On Unices most user apps are in /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin. And it's possible to work out something similar on windows.

Put CVS and all your other helper applications in
C:\BIN\ and there you have a simple PATH entry that solves your problems, not only for maven.

If needed, use links from C:\BIN\Myapp to real location or add specially crafted batch files (for example some that may contain extended PATH information for some applications). That will cut down your PATH size.

On Unixes You're right, linking helps really much. On Windows it's a fake, working only with the start menu. BTW: I don't think, that it will take more than about one or two hours to realize it, and it will disturb nobody, so what's the problem with it? The alternative for me woud be to look for a way not to download the scm plugin automatically and instead make private changes to the plugin.

On Windows, one primary source of a CVS client is Cygwin. Putting Cygwin's path into the PATH environment variable when a program has a Cygwin and an native version. One such example is if you have both ActiveTCL and Cygwin's TCL installed. Gaim has a TCL plugin, but if Cygwin's TCL is in the path, it will get used and cause Gaim to crash. Additionally, on Windows program need to be in %PROGRAMFILES% by product according to the Designed for Windows XP Logo specification. This prohibits having a single path to put in the environment variable.

OK links don't work completely (I remembered there was something tricky about it), that's why I said to add batch files to wrapp your commands.

%PROGRAMFILES% is used to put your application into them, it doens't say that you have to put the %PROGRAMFILES%\YourApp\ in the PATH.
On most windows system, you have none of these %PROGRAMFILES% on the path, because starting the correct application is done either throught the UI or using mime.types registration in the registry (correct me if I am wrong).

As with gaim, I've used it many times on windows, and it's not been on the PATH, because I never start it from the CL.
If you face problems with it, it is because you have gaim and cygwin in your PATH, while if you use one of the solutions below, you can selectively have Gaim OR cygwin in the PATH; meaning that your problem will go away.

You can still have a batch file that will start your application from C:\BIN

E.g.

> type C:\BIN\gaim.bat
PATH=%PATH%;C:\Program Files\Gaim\
gaim.exe
>

(syntax might be wrong)

or if you don't want that, keep your system PATH small and make a batch file that fills up your PATH

E.g.
> type fullpath.bat
PATH=%PATH%;C:\Program Files\Gaim\;C:\Program Files\XXX\; .....

and then each time you need to use a program that is in the full path in a CMD, you do a

. C:\fullpath.bat

before, to load your PATH.

And last solution you can make a special maven wrapper script that sets your PATH to the minimum before you start maven. Once again problem should be solved.

My reason for not wanting it? It's because windows doesn't require you to have 1000 of entries in the PATH, and there are other solutions that work as good, and are cleaner. To have 1000 entries in the PATH is not clean, from a theorical and from a Microsoft point of view neither.

Maybe I am wrong. let the assignee decide

Windows is not Unix, and batch files cannot always be executed when exe files are expected. Also, some programs seem to use the PATH variable to search for their libraries. So, without real symbolic links, it seems better to not use the PATH for every helper application. I'd prefer, if the environment variable would only be modified temporarily (just for calling cvs from the plugin). However, it seems not possible to change the binary for ant:cvs. If this should be necessary, the only chance to get around would be to use the exec task.