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From: platt@emory.uucp (Dan Platt)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Creating a new DOS shell through MSC 4.0
Message-ID: <2235@emory.uucp>
Date: Fri, 11-Sep-87 21:50:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: emory.2235
Posted: Fri Sep 11 21:50:59 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 13-Sep-87 09:30:35 EDT
References: <9172@brl-adm.ARPA> <1125@gilsys.UUCP>
Reply-To: platt@emory.UUCP (Dan Platt)
Organization: Math & Computer Science, Emory University, Atlanta
Lines: 34

In article <1125@gilsys.UUCP> mc68020@gilsys.UUCP (Thomas J Keller) writes:
>In article <9172@brl-adm.ARPA>, buwyatt%brock.cdn%ubc.csnet@RELAY.CS.NET (Jamie Wyatt) writes:
>> I am working on a project and I wish to allow the user to spawn
>> to the dos shell...
>
>   Look, Jamie, nothing personal, but this is ** NOT A C LANGUAGE PROBLEM **!
>
>   This newsgroup is for the discussion of C language issues.  Your problem is
>quite clearly an MeSSY-DOS programming problem.  I have noted an increasing
>number of such MeSsy-DOS programming questions appearing here.  Kindly ask
>these questions elsewhere, thank you.
>-- 
>Tom Keller 
>VOICE  : + 1 707 575 9493
>UUCP   : {ihnp4,ames,sun,amdahl,lll-crg,pyramid}!ptsfa!gilsys!mc68020

Actually, the question that Jamie asked is not messy, nor is it 
particularly DOS.  This question has to do with the C/DOS interface.
The answer is the system function call 'system("command");'.  The
programming technique is completely analogous to the technique used
in unix (' system("sh"); ').  

This question is germain to C as much as any discussion of the functions
are (such as printf, malloc, scanf, etc) or would you rather exclude
these as not being 'strictly C'.  There is a Waterloo C compiler for
the IBM 370 series to operate under cms which doesn't have any unix
like interfaces (no malloc even, so have fun with dynamic trees), which
demonstrates that C is a very primitive language with strong structures.
As far as the real power of C, it is strongly dependent on the interface
the language has with the system, and most of the questions I've seen here
deal with how do the functions behave (at least, this is the kind of
information I've found the most interesting).

Dan