Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!philmtl!philabs!ttidca!svirsky
From: svirsky@ttidca.TTI.COM (Bill Svirsky)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: DOS 3.30 PATH and Environment lengths
Keywords: Please HELP: What's wrong with this picture?
Message-ID: <4940@ttidca.TTI.COM>
Date: 28 Jul 89 22:00:04 GMT
References: <3695@i.sei.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: svirsky@ttidcc.tti.com (Bill Svirsky)
Organization: Citicorp/TTI, Santa Monica
Lines: 28

In article <3695@i.sei.cmu.edu> gjp@sei.cmu.edu (George Pandelios) writes:
+I'm having trouble setting my PATH to a length larger than an small 
+(127?) number of characters.
[...]
+PATH F:\;C:\;C:\PCTOOLS;C:\SEDT;C:\BIN;C:\MOUSE;C:\UTIL\PROCOM;C:\TP;
+C:\MYM;C:\SMART;E:\;E:\TC;E:\TASM;E:\MASS11;E:\GEORGE\A86;E:\M2;
+REM							  ^this part gets
+REM							   left off if I
+REM							   do a SET command

The problem has nothing to do with the environment size or the
environment variable.  The problem is that MSDOS commands are limited to
128 characters or less.  MSDOS has no problem searching a path longer
than 128 characters.  I just created a path of over 200 characters on my
Compaq running MSDOS 3.31 using the 'nset' command of the Picnix
package.  It allows concatenation of environment variables, as in 'nset
PATH=$PATH;$PATH;$PATH;d:\dl\vde', and DOS had no problem finding a
program in d:\dl\vde.  Unfortunately the MSDOS 'set' command won't do
concatenation.  Picnix is a very nice set of **ix-like utilities for MSDOS
computers.  I can't send the 'nset.exe' without the rest of the Picnix
package without violating its copyright, and it's too large to send if
there are other programs out there that will do the same thing.  If
nothing shows up in a week or so, I'll try to package Picnix and mail it
to you.  If there is enough interest, I can post it to comp.binaries.ibm.pc.
-- 
Bill Svirsky, Citicorp+TTI, 3100 Ocean Park Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405
Work phone: 213-450-9111 x2597
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