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From: Ralf.Brown@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: MS-DOS 4.01 vs. 3.3
Message-ID: <26d9a243@ralf>
Date: 27 Aug 90 22:44:19 GMT
Sender: ralf@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Organization: Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science
Lines: 22
In-Reply-To: <136@thor.UUCP>

In article <136@thor.UUCP>, scjones@thor.UUCP (Larry Jones) wrote:
}There are some things that the old FCB functions do MUCH more
}efficiently that the new file handle calls do, so some NEW
}programs still use them.

Yes, mass deletes and renames are done in a single pass through the directory
with the FCB calls, while they require a directory search to find all affected
files and a separate call (involving its own directory search) to do the
rename or delete for each found file.

HOWEVER, there is a way to enable wildcards on path rename/delete.  If you
invoke INT 21/AH=41h or AH=56h via the server call (INT 21/AX=5D00h),
a wildcard rename/move or delete is possible using canonicalized filenames
returned by INT 21/AH=60h.  The delete will need only a single pass through
the directory; similarly for a rename to the same directory.  You can also
move multiple files to another directory, optionally renaming while moving.

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