Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!rochester!udel!mmdf
From: AXTBF%ALASKA.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu (Tim Friest - programmer at large)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Wildcard Support in dos.library
Message-ID: <9499@louie.udel.EDU>
Date: 24 Feb 89 07:47:10 GMT
Sender: mmdf@udel.EDU
Lines: 45

>microsoft!w-colinp@uunet.UU.NET

>You wrote:
>> Where is the AmigaDOS equivilent to STR$MATCH_WILD (in VMS)??
>> I know, there ain't one.  Why not?!   (don't tell me that ARP has one,
>> because that ain't good enough).

>*Why* isn't the ARP one good enough?

ARP is not good enough because I don't have it on my system.  A lot of people
don't have it on their system.  I don't want to right programs for general
distribution that don't work on a lot (a majority) of systems.  If there
was a routine provided with DOS, I could use it, all the DOS commands that
use pattern matching (or those that should and don't like protect), would
be able to use it without growing in size (there should be an overall savings
in disk space).
I didn't mean that ARP did not handle string matching well....

>(BTW, what are the semantics of STR$MATCH_WILD? If it just does a pattern
>match in two strings, *IT DOESN'T BELONG IN DOS*.  It's a general string
>globbing routine, and has nothing in particular to do with file I/O.

Yep that's it: if (str$match_wild(string, pattern) == STR$_MATCH) then

>As a utility, sure, but it belongs in dos.library even less than LoadSeg,
>CreateProc, and Execute.

I don't see where you want to do string pattern matching using the DOS
string pattern matching patterns outside of DOS???

>If CATS wanted one, they could easily get the one from ARP.  Or Henry
>Spencer's regular expression library.  You do have a point that it's a
>useful utility.  Maybe someone should come up with a utils.library.

My vote is for CATS to get one, or write one, or have me write one, or
have you write one... and add it to the OS where it belongs!  They can
decide if it goes in EXEC.LIBRARY or DOS.LIBRARY or whatever.library.
Having it come with the distribution disks would make it usable.

>--
>    -Colin (uunet!microsoft!w-colinp)

Tim Friest = AXTBF@ALASKA.BITNET

Disclaimer: Quote from my employer, "What's an Amiga?"