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From: toma@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Tom Almy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: / as a dir delimiter
Message-ID: <7121@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM>
Date: 16 Mar 90 21:11:29 GMT
References: <16559@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> <249@gritty.UUCP> <14409@cbnewsc.ATT.COM> <1990Mar15.192216.4153@seri.gov> <1990Mar16.141118.26192@mks.com>
Reply-To: toma@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Tom Almy)
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.
Lines: 33

In article <1990Mar16.141118.26192@mks.com> andy@mks.com (Andy Toy) writes:
>In article <1990Mar15.192216.4153@seri.gov> marshall@wind55.seri.gov (Marshall L. Buhl) writes:
>>Various long-time *nix users asked if there was a way to modify MS DOS so
>>that one could use "/" instead of "\" to delimit directories.
>>I can't answer that, but as a long time PC user whose started dabbling in
>>*nix, how can I modify *nix to use the "\" delimiter instead of "/"?  You 
>>know, the way God intended it to be.

>Write a new shell for UNIX that looks like command.com :-)
>It should be easier than writing a UNIX-style shell for DOS.
>Andy Toy, Mortice Kern Systems Inc.,       Internet: andy@mks.com

Smiley face or not, you are probably right! (And you should know about
writing a UNIX-style shell for DOS.)

Since in DOS, the programs themselves do command line parsing, you can
never really handle the slash confusion without patching a bunch of
executables (although, if my memory serves, ANARKEY will flip the slashes
for selected programs (you give it the list of culprits)).

On the other hand, the UNIX shell does the bulk of the command line
parsing, so writing a UNIX shell that would allow file names with back
slashes would be fairly straight forward.

It should be a great moneymaking product -- just think of all the hoards
of MSDOS users that are scared of UNIX, but would accept it if the commands
were the same!

Tom Almy
toma@tekgvs.labs.tek.com
Standard Disclaimers Apply

"copy /b flames*.* nul"