Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!ncar!boulder!jennings
From: jennings@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Jeff Jennings)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: MS-DOS 3.3 Path/Environment Space
Summary: COMMAND.COM limitation
Keywords: MS-DOS 3.3, PATHS
Message-ID: <5774@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Date: 12 Jan 89 05:41:40 GMT
References: <2103@vu-vlsi.Villanova.EDU> <1203@bucket.UUCP>
Sender: news@boulder.Colorado.EDU
Reply-To: jennings@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Jeff Jennings)
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Lines: 32

In article <1203@bucket.UUCP> leonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson) writes:
>In article <2103@vu-vlsi.Villanova.EDU> sword@vu-vlsi.Villanova.EDU (Ronin) writes:
><I'm having a few problems setting up my pathnames properly.  I've got
><a long list of pathnames (about 240+ characters total) which I'd like
><set up.  I placed the following line in my CONFIG.SYS
><
><shell=C:\COMMAND.COM C:\ /p/e:1024
><
><I've done this, up to /e:4096, and the system crashes once the
><path becomes greater than 127 characters (i've tested it, one
><character at a time).
>
>Sorry, but due limitations (buffer size?) *inside* DOS, the path like any
>other environment variable must be less than 128 bytes long. Your only
>hope is to put a LASTDRIVE=?? in your CONFIG.SYS and use a lot of SUBST's
>in you AUTOEXEC.BAT.

Actually, this is a limitation of COMMAND.COM, not DOS.  The command buffer
in COMMAND.COM is 128 bytes, so that is the maximum length of any command.
Other command interpreters allow longer command lines.  There is no limitation
on the size of an environment variable, it can be any length up to the size
of the environment.  I use a program called BIGPATH which allows me to put
the following in my autoexec.bat:
	PATH = c:\bin;c:\tc;.... (long path)
	set AUXPATH = c:\games;d:\junk;.... (another long path)
	BIGPATH
The program catenates the two paths together, so yo get a nice long PATH
variable.  The program was posted not too long ago, should be available from
archive sites.
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Jeff Jennings
University of Colorado, Boulder