Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!mks!wheels
From: wheels@mks.UUCP (Gerry Wheeler)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: MKS Toolkit Question
Keywords: MKS with MSC
Message-ID: <546@mks.UUCP>
Date: 10 Nov 88 20:57:03 GMT
References: <4994@whuts.UUCP> <7501@dasys1.UUCP>
Organization: Mortice Kern Systems, Waterloo, Ont.
Lines: 25

In article <7501@dasys1.UUCP>, tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
> So any program wishing to spawn something via COMMAND.COM
> *must* actually interrogate SWITCHAR first, if you want to be able
> to run it with 'switch -' in effect.  Now, can you guess how many
> programs out there in the real world are smart enough to do this?
> That's right, you got it. :-)

Microsoft's own system() library function fails on this count.  If you
write a program in Microsoft C using the system() call, it calls
command.com with the "/c" option without checking the current switch
character. 

I think Microsoft is moving away from allowing the use of hyphen as the
switch character.  In DOS 4.0, it appears that most DOS utilities
(command.com, format, etc.) do not check the current setting of the
switch character.

I sometimes wondered if the system call to set/retrieve the switch
character was put in by a Unix programmer without permission to do so,
and they're still getting rid of his code.  :-)
-- 
     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