-# the parens around makepath shouldn't be necessary but appear to be
-# needed on cygwin, presumably because makepath is a /bin/sh function
-(makepath ${LONGDIR}) || test_skipped "unable to create long directory"
+makepath $LONGDIR || test_skipped "unable to create long directory"
+touch $LONGDIR/1 || test_skipped "unable to create files in long directory"