Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site digi-g.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!stolaf!umn-cs!digi-g!dan
From: dan@digi-g.UUCP (Dan Messinger)
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: conventions regarding quoted arguments to DOS commands
Message-ID: <646@digi-g.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Jun-85 09:43:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: digi-g.646
Posted: Thu Jun  6 09:43:54 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Jun-85 03:27:51 EDT
References: <715@pyuxqq.UUCP>
Reply-To: dan@digi-g.UUCP (dan)
Organization: Digigraphic Systems Corp., Mpls, MN
Lines: 35
Summary: 

In article <715@pyuxqq.UUCP> ral@pyuxqq.UUCP (R A Levenberg) writes:
>the UNIX shell will parse this command line
>	sed 's/x/ /g' <file
>into 2 arguments,
>	sed
>	s/x/ /g
>The sed command never knows that quotes were used to define the
>argument.  The same does not seem to be true in DOS, where I think
>the above command would produce these arguments
>	sed
>	's/x/
>	/g'
>How, then, does one pass an argument containing delimiters such
>as blanks to a DOS command (especially a UNIX command ported to a PC)?

DOS does not parse parameters at all. It is up to the application to do
it.  It is code that is added by the C compiler that is doing the parsing
before calling main() of the application.  So it is up to the C compiler
to recognize quotes.  Your above example works fine under DOS if you use
the MS version 3 C with "...".  It doesn't recognize '...'.  Also, "s will
prevent DOS from acting on <, > and |.

>A related question is the evalution of, say, *.c, on a command line.
>DOS (actually command.com) will tell the invoked program its argument
>is "*.c", whereas the UNIX shell will tell the invoked program its arguments
>are, say, main.c, foo.c and bar.c.  Does this mean that DOS programs
>use those SYSINT system calls themselves to get first matching file name
>and next matching file name whenever an argument contains wild card
>characters?

Afraid so.  I heard a rumor once that the MS ver 3 C would expand match
characters.  I've tried it, and it doesn't.  

Dan Messinger
ihnp4!umn-cs!digi-g!dan