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From: ggr@pyuxbb.UUCP (Guy Riddle)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards,btl.unix
Subject: Re: Found: a version of 'make' that uses a MAKEPATH
Message-ID: <170@pyuxbb.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 29-Sep-83 12:15:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxbb.170
Posted: Thu Sep 29 12:15:27 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Sep-83 23:23:24 EDT
References: <158@pyuxbb.UUCP> <165@pyuxbb.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Piscataway
Lines: 16

I forgot to mention an interesting trifle about VPATH yesterday.
The directories in the VPATH search path can be separated by ':'s,
as you might expect, or they may be separated by '-'s, which
you wouldn't unless you were a UNIX history buff.

The separation of directories by hypens is apparently a "compatability
feature" from the dark past.  It seems that a very early version of
the Bourne shell, when it was called /bin/bsh and wasn't the "real"
shell yet, separated directory names in the PATH variable with hyphens.
When Steve changed to colons, bunches of programs were fixed to
handle either one.  Apparently there remain places where this legacy
lives on.

So watch out if you like to put hyphens in your directory names.

			=== Guy Riddle == AT&T Bell Laboratories, Piscataway ===