Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!tekcrl!tekgvs!keithe
From: keithe@tekgvs.GVS.TEK.COM (Keith Ericson)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: MKS switch char (was: BEWARE...)
Keywords: switchar COMMAND.COM
Message-ID: <4129@tekgvs.GVS.TEK.COM>
Date: 24 Oct 88 14:59:41 GMT
References: <824@kksys.UUCP> <930@proxftl.UUCP>
Reply-To: keithe@tekgvs.GVS.TEK.COM (Keith Ericson)
Distribution: na
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.
Lines: 31

In article <930@proxftl.UUCP> markd@proxftl.UUCP (Mark Davidson) writes:
>...the [MKS] Korn shell sets your path separator to / and uses - as an option
>switch,...

    actually, changing the switch character is an option, not forced
    upon you by the shell; the "switch" command is usually invoked in
    /etc/rc.ksh, /etc/profile.ksh or $HOME/profile.ksh

>...Microsoft C has problems because you would naturally use /'s in your
>environment variables (PATH, LIB, INCLUDE), right?  You have to change this
>back in your shell setup scripts, as Microsoft C can't handle forward slashes
>in these variables.

    Strangely, the compiler is comfortable with forward-slashes (/) and
    I can set INCLUDE=c:/usr/include but the linker can't handle it so
    I have to set LIB=C:\usr\lib. But these are independent of the
    current switch character. (However, I do relatively simple
    compilations with all files are in the current directory; I haven't
    tried any multiple-source-directory or -drive compiles.)
    
    Word Perfect used to give me a problem, too, but I simply used
    back-slash (\) when I set up its search paths, and my MKS PATH
    variable uses / for everything except the wp50 portion whre I used
    a \ instead:
    
    	export PATH="${PATH};c:/dos;.;c:/nfs;c:\wp50"
    
    It's no worse than any of the other UNIX-isms we've all
    come to know and love...
    
    keith