Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!hpda!hpcupt1!hprnd!matt
From: matt@hprnd.HP.COM (Matt Wakeley)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Virus warning
Message-ID: <2180008@hprnd.HP.COM>
Date: 10 Apr 89 16:23:41 GMT
References: <373@nbires.nbi.com>
Organization: HP Roseville Networks Division
Lines: 16

> +---------------
> | The supposed bugs in ARCMASTER version 4xx and higher do not exist. If
> | people would bother to read the doc files they would have learned that
> | the directory that you specify for it to use to unarc and arc files to 
> | MUST be a special blank directory, since it will erase the entire contents
> +---------------
> 
> Bogus design.  Why doesn't it either (a) create a scratch directory for its
> own use or (b) make sure the directory is empty before running (that can
> even be done from a batch file:  IF EXIST %1\*.* GOTO BADDIR)?

> I suggest that people who use ARCMASTER use a wrapper script which does one
> of the above, as a sanity check.

Why doesn't the program just remember which files it creates and then
only erase those files?  Sounds like a VERY bad design to me.