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Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!rpi!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen
From: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: DOS's Hidden UN*X-like Behavior
Message-ID: <243@sixhub.UUCP>
Date: 25 Dec 89 18:13:36 GMT
References: <1989Dec23.024131.6399@eng.umd.edu>
Reply-To: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Distribution: usa
Organization: *IX Public Access UNIX, Schenectady NY
Lines: 26

In article <1989Dec23.024131.6399@eng.umd.edu> linco@eng.umd.edu (Sam Lin) writes:

| However, I discovered that the path separator also gets transformed from the
| brain-damaged '\' to the UN*X '/'!!

  Well, not really. If you look at the DOS manual, you will see that the
pathname separator is allowed to be / or \, and has been since DOS 2.0!
The whole non-sense about the switch character is in COMMAND.COM and
other applications. When COMMAND.COM stops looking for the / as an
"option inducer" the / goes through and is (as always) treated as a path
level separator. This is why you can use / in the #include (unless the
compiler deliberately breaks them).

  Someone decided to go with the DEC / options instead of the - UNIX
options. I believe this is because QDOS (the original MS-DOS V0.0) was
based on CP/M, which was based on RSTS or some similar PDP-xx operating
system interface. The CP/M copy program is called PIP, after the
Peripherial Interchange Program.

  At any rate, that's why it works, it's not that anything in DOS
changes, just that the command processor lets the / through.
-- 
	bill davidsen - sysop *IX BBS and Public Access UNIX
davidsen@sixhub.uucp		...!uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen

"Getting old is bad, but it beats the hell out of the alternative" -anon