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From: craigb@hp-sdd.hp.com (Craig Bosworth)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: What interprets *.*
Message-ID: <2576@hp-sdd.hp.com>
Date: 20 Sep 89 16:14:06 GMT
References: <32164@ames.arc.nasa.gov> <667@suntops.Tops.Sun.COM>
Reply-To: craigb@hp-sdd.UUCP (Craig Bosworth)
Organization: Hewlett Packard, San Diego
Lines: 21

In article <667@suntops.Tops.Sun.COM> rdas@hatter.tops.sun.com (Robin Das) writes:
>In article <32164@ames.arc.nasa.gov> gahooten@titan (Gregory A. Hooten) writes:
>>In Unix, it is the shell that interprets the character *, what in
>>DOS will do the same thing?
>
>COMMAND.COM does the * and ? processing in DOS.  If you want a program to 
>do the same type of thing, the program must include the smarts.  

DOS functions 4Eh and 4Fh, FINDFIRST and FINDNEXT search for files based
on a wildcarded path name.  I *imagine* COMMAND.COM uses these functions.
Not wanting to "include the smarts" myself, I have used them.  I have no
idea how they rate performance- or bug-wise, but I've never had any prob-
lems with them.

BOS

-- 
Craig Bosworth  (619) 592-8609           16399 West Bernardo Drive
Hewlett-Packard, San Diego Division      San Diego, CA  92127-1899
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