Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ednor.bbc.com!cgf
From: cgf@ednor.bbc.com (Chris Faylor)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: 4dos quirks
Message-ID: <1990May8.125326.601@ednor.bbc.com>
Date: 8 May 90 12:53:26 GMT
References: <12407@bclcl1.im.battelle.org> <1990May5.014627.2792@ednor.bbc.com> <38880@brunix.UUCP>
Organization: Boston Business Computing, Ltd.; Andover, MA, USA
Lines: 39

In article <38880@brunix.UUCP> cs132071@cslab5g.cs.brown.edu (Joel Scotkin) writes:
>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.

I am aware of this setting, but I didn't think it was necessary in this case.
I was under the (mis?) impression that it was not necessary to use backslashes
where the command was known to 4dos and took no qualifiers.  The candidates
for this (off the top of my head) are:

cd
cdd
mkdir
rd

In any event, whatever the operation switch character SHOULD be, the behavior
of 4DOS in normal operation is very counter-intuitive.  If '/' is not valid
at all for a path separator, then 4DOS should issue an error, not allow the
first occurrence and ignore the rest.
-- 
Chris Faylor		Boston Business Computing, Ltd.
cgf@ednor.bbc.com	President: Anti Usenet-Obsessive-Behavior Society

The opinions expressed here just might represent the opinions of this company.