Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!uunet!mcvax!kth!draken!tut!tukki!tarvaine
From: tarvaine@tukki.jyu.fi (Tapani Tarvainen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Irritating quirks of MS-DOS...
Message-ID: <1047@tukki.jyu.fi>
Date: 25 Jul 89 03:19:43 GMT
References: <2090@csuna.csun.edu>
Reply-To: tarvaine@tukki.jyu.fi (Tapani Tarvainen)
Organization: University of Jyvaskyla, Finland
Lines: 32

In article <2090@csuna.csun.edu> abcscnuk@csuna.csun.edu (Naoto Kimura) writes:
>I find a number of irritating quirks of MS-DOS:

MS-DOS sure has a lot or irritating quirks, the following too
can be circumvented easily however (in DOS 3.x at least):

>*   If I type "A:FOO" to run a program or batch file from the A: drive,
>    and such a file doesn't exist on the A: drive, it will search the
>    path for the file and execute whatever it finds, even if it doesn't
>    exist on the drive I specified on the command line.

Type "A:.\FOO" instead.

>*   If I make a batch file, the output of the batch file cannot be
>    redirected.

Invoke it with another copy of COMMAND.COM:
"COMMAND /C MYBATCH > RESULTS"
assuming of course that you can spare the memory.

>I'd like to know from those people who have used OS/2 if these same
>quirks occur with the command processor in OS/2.

I'd like to know that, too.  The OS/2 command processor does have
several enhancements over DOS, including a much-needed escape
character (^) and a few new batch file commands, but my knowledge here
is based on what I've read, I don't have access to an OS/2 machine
or even manuals.  Perhaps someone who is actually using OS/2 would
care to comment?

-- 
Tapani Tarvainen    (tarvaine@jyu.fi, tarvainen@finjyu.bitnet)