Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mit-eddie!bu-cs!buengc!bph
From: bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: execl()'ing batch files in DOS
Message-ID: <2896@buengc.BU.EDU>
Date: 17 May 89 18:28:09 GMT
References: <302@ohs.UUCP>
Reply-To: bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton)
Followup-To: comp.lang.c
Organization: Boston Univ. Col. of Eng.
Lines: 28

In article <302@ohs.UUCP> mday@ohs.UUCP (Matthew T. Day) writes:
>Does anybody know if it's possible to execl() a batch file in DOS?  I am
>using MicroSoft C v5.1, and using MS-DOS v3.30.  I have tried:
>
>	execl("\command.com", "tryit.bat", NULL);
>
>and perror() tells me "No such file or directory."  Any help or input would
>be appreciated.

Perhaps the backslash is causing the following c to be interpreted literally
as a c, i.e., as though the backslash weren't there at all.

I.e. it's actually doing the same as

	execl("command.com", "tryit.bat", NULL);

which looks in the current dir, not in the root dir, for command.com.

replace the single backslash with a double backslash, and the first will
cause the second to be interpreted literally _by_the_compiler_...

	execl("\\command.com", "tryit.bat", NULL);

now the string itself will contain the backslash.

				--Blair
				  "Good thing it wasn't a trigraph.
				   We might have stepped in it..."