Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!mks!wheels From: wheels@mks.UUCP (Gerry Wheeler) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: using "/" in pathnames Summary: some programs break, but they're in the minority Message-ID: <460@mks.UUCP> Date: 30 May 88 22:03:50 GMT References: <1238@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> Organization: Mortice Kern Systems, Waterloo, Ont. Lines: 41 In article <1238@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu>, sullivan@marge.math.binghamton.edu (fred sullivan) writes: > Some time ago someone complained about having to use "\" in MSDOS > pathnames. I just submitted to comp.binaries.ibm.pc a program to > fix this. > Fred Sullivan MKS includes such a program in the MKS Toolkit. Changing the switch character to '-' (or anything other than '/') can have unexpected side effects, though. I get calls from users who have problems doing that. For example: 1) Programs that use command.com to execute a sub-task (some makes, some editors, etc.) may fail. They assume that the switch character is '/', so they try to do "command /c foo" (or whatever). Of course, command.com checks the switch character, sees it has been set to '-', and decides that "/c" must refer to a directory. It prints an error message when it can't find /c, and enters interactive mode. The user has to type EXIT to return to the application. Note that the code in Microsoft's C Compiler's system() function exhibits this behaviour. Since they wrote both the OS and the compiler, you'd think they'd write code that checked for this. 2) As a side side effect, once users start using '/' in path names, they use them everywhere, including environment variables. This is to be expected. However, some programs, like Microsoft C, won't correctly read variables that contain '/'. They will only accept '\' in path names. 3) As of version 3.2 (I think) of DOS, you may not use '/' in config.sys. Prior to that, you could use either slash. How much code did they have to add to ensure you used only one kind? However, in general, if you are looking for a more Unix-like interface, this is probably the first thing you'll want to change. Most programs work fine. Just remember to keep yours eyes open for the oddballs. -- Gerry Wheeler Phone: (519)884-2251 Mortice Kern Systems Inc. UUCP: uunet!watmath!mks!wheels 35 King St. North BIX: join mks Waterloo, Ontario N2J 2W9 CompuServe: 73260,1043