Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bu-cs!madd
From: madd@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Jim Frost)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Backup program (Really: TPascal exec())
Summary: careful
Message-ID: <23588@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 2 Jul 88 19:36:23 GMT
Reply-To: madd@bu-it.bu.edu (Jim Frost)
Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Organization: Boston University Distributed Systems Group
Lines: 24

In article <1100003@hpisoa2.HP.COM> raphael@hpisoa2.HP.COM (Bert Raphael) writes:
|If you convert to Turbo Pascal 4, you can do what you want with the
|new "exec" function-- execute an arbitrary DOS program (COM, EXE, or
|BAT) with a specified argument string.

Be careful with this function.  I've found that in some instances it
can cause memory errors and crash the machine.  It's probably best to
exec COMMAND.COM with /C to exec your program.  A kludge, I know, but
it does fix that problem.  If anyone wants to know more about the
specific errors I was getting, email and I'll send you a description.
I haven't tried reproducing it under different circumstances, although
I should have.

|Conversion from Turbo Pascal 3 is somewhat painful if you have a large,
|complicated program with overlays and chain files, but worth it for
|the resulting much nicer development environment and higher speed.

Ditto.  Its optimizations (mostly dead code removal and constant
folding) also make things smaller.  If you have a million .INC files
that you use to provide functions (like I do), making them into units
will make your life so much easier....

jim frost
madd@bu-it.bu.edu