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From: jvc@prism.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: DOS version of Un*x /dev/null?
Message-ID: <206900081@prism>
Date: Mon, 28-Sep-87 08:00:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: prism.206900081
Posted: Mon Sep 28 08:00:00 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 29-Sep-87 05:45:35 EDT
References: <1879@ucbcad.berkeley.edu>
Lines: 34
Nf-ID: #R:ucbcad.berkeley.edu:-187900:prism:206900081:000:1177
Nf-From: prism.UUCP!jvc    Sep 28 08:00:00 1987


>DOS has some pre-defined "special" devices, for various purposes.  They are
>typically referenced as a drive identifier, but the ":" may be omitted,
>and DOS will still recognize the "device".  One of these is the "nul:"
>device.  Anything that is re-directed to nul: (or *any* file name
>beginning with "nul") effectively ends up in the bit bucket.  That is why
>it is impossible to create a real file such as "nulify.doc".  The "nul"
>at the beginning of the file name forces DOS to ignore the remaining
>characters.  The same principle applies to the other "special" devices.
>
>Chris Seaman            |    o\  /o

Yea, leaving off the : works but did you try creating a file
"nulify.doc" or did you just assume that you couldn't.  You can use
any of the reserved device names as the first letters of a file
name as long as you have at least one additional character before
the extention.  Example:

	nula.doc
	conb.tre
        prns

As someone mentioned before, adding extentions to device names won't
have any affect.  For example:

	nul
	nul.doc
	nul.com
	nul.exe

all refer to the same device (therefore you cannot create a file with
these names).

jvc@mirror.tmc.com