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Path: utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!brianc
From: brianc@cognos.UUCP (Brian Campbell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: DOS line editing
Message-ID: <307@cognos.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 15-Jan-87 18:07:05 EST
Article-I.D.: cognos.307
Posted: Thu Jan 15 18:07:05 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 16-Jan-87 22:51:49 EST
Reply-To: brianc@cognos.UUCP (Brian Campbell)
Organization: Cognos Inc., Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 22
Keywords: DOS, Line editing
Summary: Ctrl-U/Ctrl-W feature?


     I've got a question concerning some of the line editing provided by
MS-DOS/PC-DOS. 

     In almost every version I used up to and including 3.1, there has
been a Ctrl-U and Ctrl-W keystroke which is recognized.  [For those of
you who didn't know of or didn't have these features, Ctrl-U erases the
entire line (similar to ESC, but on the same line) and Ctrl-W erases
backward to the last non-alphanumeric character]. 

     The one day I was on a friend's machine running DOS 3.1 and found
that his copy did not support either function.  I did some quick
investigating and found that two short jumps in IBMDOS had been NOP'd
out.  I replaced them with the appropriate instructions and everything
worked as it used to [as I was used to]. 

     My question is why was this feature left out in some versions of
DOS (or, why was it included in mine?) I've since looked a little more
closely at the matter and found that the split is just about half and
half between haves and have-nots.  Any reasons? Ideas?

     Thanks.