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From: cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: Bug With PC-DOS 3.1 DEL command?
Message-ID: <787@kontron.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 15-May-86 15:58:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: kontron.787
Posted: Thu May 15 15:58:15 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 18-May-86 10:52:40 EDT
References: <785@kontron.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: Kontron Electronics, Mt. View, CA
Lines: 23

> We've found what looks like a severe bug with the PC-DOS 3.1 DEL command --
> watch out!
> 
> One of the engineers working for me typed:
> 
> 	DEL A.O
>         
> and was asked "Are you sure (Y/N)?"
> 
> Not being thoroughly familiar with PC-DOS, he didn't realize that this
> prompt is put out when you say "DEL *.*", so he said "y<return>" and
> the entire directory was cleared out.  A little experiementation found
> that DEL followed by ANY single filename caused it to assume that we had
> typed "DEL *.*".
> 
> ERASE works correctly -- only DEL (which should be equivalent) fails.
> 
> Clayton E. Cramer

But DEL doesn't fail everytime.  Some quirk, perhaps, of the particular 
order of files in the directory?

Clayton E. Cramer