Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!purdue!umd5!uvaarpa!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!rivers
From: rivers@xyzzy.UUCP (Dave Rivers)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: picnix3  mv
Keywords: To a non-existent directory---phooom!
Message-ID: <905@xyzzy.UUCP>
Date: 14 Jun 88 13:20:58 GMT
References: <27734@clyde.ATT.COM> <7449@swan.ulowell.edu> <3563@tekgvs.TEK.COM>
Reply-To: rivers@torpid.UUCP (Dave Rivers)
Organization: Data General Corporation, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA
Lines: 52

In article <3563@tekgvs.TEK.COM> toma@tekgvs.UUCP (Tom Almy) writes:
>In article <7449@swan.ulowell.edu> boneill@hawk.ulowell.edu (SoftXc Coordinator) writes:
>>In article <27734@clyde.ATT.COM> feg@clyde.ATT.COM (Forrest Gehrke) writes:
>>>[...] If you should happen to request a
>>>move of a file to a non-existent directory, it
>>>"moves" it and deletes it from the source
>>>directory---all silently.  
>>
>>I was unable to recreate this problem. 
>
>Well, I was able.  I  don't use PICNIX mv (I use a MetaWare version), but I
>tried it with PICNIX cp, the new "corrected" version:
>
>cp file \foo\bar
>
>where directory \foo does not exist, causes a copy of the file to be made in
>the *current* directory, called "foobar".  Not too nice.
>
>Tom Almy
>toma@tekgvs.TEK.COM
>

If you have set the swithchar to a forward slash (ala UNIX) then, as per
unix definitions, the backslash becomes the escape char, not the escape
key on your keyboard, but rather a character which indicates that the next
character is to be taken literally.  Certain characters following the backslash
have particular meanings - for example \n indicates new-line (as with 'C').
If the character is not one of those signalled out, the backslash has no effect,
and is simply "removed" from the line. (If I may be so loose in my description)
So, your command:

    cp file \foo\bar

  becomes
 
    cp file foobar
  
  since \f and \b mean nothing.

If you really wanted to try out the copy, do it this way:

    cp file /foo/bar


	- Dave Rivers


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