Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ncar!gatech!mailer.cc.fsu.edu!uflorida!SORROW@MAPLE.CIRCA.UFL.EDU
From: sorrow@oak.circa.ufl.edu
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Re: Building a better DOS revisisted (getting close to UNIX)
Message-ID: <0094A992.0B71BDE0@MAPLE.CIRCA.UFL.EDU>
Date: 24 Jun 91 13:55:27 GMT
References: <0094A761.C2F6D640@MAPLE.CIRCA.UFL.EDU>,<PSHUANG.91Jun23155134@beeblebrox.mit.edu>
Sender: news@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU
Reply-To: sorrow@oak.circa.ufl.edu
Organization: University of Florida CIRCA VAX Cluster
Lines: 39

In article <PSHUANG.91Jun23155134@beeblebrox.mit.edu>, pshuang@athena.mit.edu (Ping-Shun Huang) writes:
|>In article <0094A761.C2F6D640@MAPLE.CIRCA.UFL.EDU> sorrow@oak.circa.ufl.edu writes:
|>
|> > Finally, I need more help (yes, MORE help) on how to make my prompt use
|> > forward slashes.  Someone told me to intercept the DOS INT that returns
|> > the correct working directory....is this safe?
|>
|>This would probably be a bad thing to do.  Not dangerous per se, but it
|>would almost certainly break a lot of programs.  If you were to
|>intercept the DOS service which returns the current working directory (I
|>don't know which one it is off the top of my head) and return a modified
|>string instead, your program may work the way you want.  COMMAND.COM
|>interpretation of the metacharacter "$P" in the PATH variable may work
|>as you would want it.  CD's default response when you don't give it a

Disabled CD and wrote my own (support HOME environment variable to take you
back to ~).

|>any parameters would be consistent.  However, any code which calls the
|>DOS service not just to print to the screen, but to actually make use of
|>the path returned thereafter (e.g. programs which switch the default
|>directory while in operation, but are polite enough to save the
|>directory you were in when you started it up) will break, because when
|>they pass the path with forward slashes back to DOS, DOS will puke.

Switchar should solve this.

|>applications which do not go through DOS.  Also, many programs may try
|>to interpret any filenames you provide on the command line as a switch.

I use switchar to get by the switch vs. directory path dilemma.
/*
Brian Hook -- Specialist in X to ANSI.SYS porting software
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"Seamus, that's my dog...I saw her today at the reception...sorry, sixTEEN
inches....better save the women and children first...but this one goes to 11!
..anymore of that plutonium nyborg?....there can be only ONE!....like a 
finger pointing to the moon....ease the seat back...one day closer to death
*/