Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!brunix!cslab5g!cs132071
From: cs132071@cslab5g.cs.brown.edu (Joel Scotkin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: 4dos quirks
Message-ID: <38880@brunix.UUCP>
Date: 5 May 90 19:12:00 GMT
References: <12407@bclcl1.im.battelle.org> <1990May5.014627.2792@ednor.bbc.com>
Sender: news@brunix.UUCP
Reply-To: cs132071@cslab5g.cs.brown.edu (Joel Scotkin)
Organization: Brown Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 30

In article <1990May5.014627.2792@ednor.bbc.com>, cgf@ednor.bbc.com
(Chris Faylor) writes:
|>I have noticed that 4dos screws up with the use of slashes in pathnames.
|>Supposedly it has the ability to use '/' or '\' interchangeably in a path
|>specification when the usage is unambiguous.  So, it seems to me that
|>the following should work:
|>
|>cd /foo/bar
|>
|>Since cd does not take any qualifiers.  Either that or 4dos should complain.
|>What it does is change your directory to the /foo.  Not exactly intuitive.
|>


The problem is that 4dos has a special setting in the setdos environment
which controls what character is currently being used as a "switch". 
This is normally set to the `/` key, and this can cause problems, and
just doesn't work so well when you want to change directory.  The fix,
which is mentioned in only one line in the file upgrade30.doc (as far as
I can telL) is to use setdos /w- (note:I think the character is w.  I
could be wrong - I am doing this by memory.  If not, look in the ugrade
file.)  This will set the switchar to `-`, and allow both slashes to
work as directory changers.  It also means, however, that dir /p becomes
dir -p, etc.  This change is implemented, but not really encouraged,
since many programs do not check the dos switchar, assume that it is the
`/`, and will cause problems when they can't do something they want to.


					Joel Scotkin