How to convert a Windows path (with backslashes) to Unix format on Babun/Cygwin

Cygwin provides the very useful cygpath utility for converting Unix and Windows format paths. From the Cygwin User Guide

The cygpath program is a utility that converts Windows native filenames to Cygwin POSIX-style pathnames and vice versa. It can be used when a Cygwin program needs to pass a file name to a native Windows program, or expects to get a file name from a native Windows program. Alternatively, cygpath can output information about the location of important system directories in either format.

It can convert to/from either Windows or DOS-style format paths, e.g. to print the Unix format of a Windows path:

$ cygpath -u "$USERPROFILE"
/cygdrive/c/Users/anthony

See the Cygwin User Guide for full details and cygpath --help for basic usage information.