Re^5: moving from mac to PC -- win internal commands

I suspect that this is related to internal commands infact when you say individual program i suspect that internal commands do not like slashes, while all other ones accept both slashes and backslashes.

Actually, some MSWindows-centric programs also don't accept / in file paths. For example, last time I used Beyond Compare's CLI, it choked on / even when it was a path like "c:/path/to/file.ext".

BTW, in MS-DOS, there was system call to change the "option switch" character. I don't remember what it was, but back when I had to use Win95, one of my mentors told me about it. Made the Win95 experience tolerable for me. Later, I discovered Cygwin.

Comment on Re^5: moving from mac to PC -- win internal commands

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^6: moving from mac to PC -- win internal commands by afoken (Chancellor) on Oct 29, 2016 at 14:46 UTC
in MS-DOS, there was system call to change the "option switch" character. I don't remember what it was API: int 0x21, ax=0x3700 = Get Switch Character, int 0x21, ax=0x3701 = Set Switch Character. Both available since MS-DOS 2.0, ignored since MS-DOS 4.01, changed to always return "/" since MS-DOS 5, DR-DOS 3.41 to 6.0. Anchient DOS versions (MS DOS 2.x and some OEM versions) allowed setting the switch character in config.sys by setting SWITCHAR=x. So yes, you could change the switch character (before MS-DOS 5), but most programs ignored it, and for those few which followed it, you had to rewrite batch files to use your switch character instead of the standard "/". Update to MS-DOS 5.0 would require another rewrite back to "/". Alexander -- Today I will gladly share my knowledge and experience, for there are no sweeter words than "I told you so". ;-)	[reply]

Replies are listed 'Best First'.

Re^6: moving from mac to PC -- win internal commands
by afoken (Chancellor) on Oct 29, 2016 at 14:46 UTC

in MS-DOS, there was system call to change the "option switch" character. I don't remember what it was

API: int 0x21, ax=0x3700 = Get Switch Character, int 0x21, ax=0x3701 = Set Switch Character. Both available since MS-DOS 2.0, ignored since MS-DOS 4.01, changed to always return "/" since MS-DOS 5, DR-DOS 3.41 to 6.0.

Anchient DOS versions (MS DOS 2.x and some OEM versions) allowed setting the switch character in config.sys by setting SWITCHAR=x.

So yes, you could change the switch character (before MS-DOS 5), but most programs ignored it, and for those few which followed it, you had to rewrite batch files to use your switch character instead of the standard "/". Update to MS-DOS 5.0 would require another rewrite back to "/".

Alexander

--
Today I will gladly share my knowledge and experience, for there are no sweeter words than "I told you so". ;-)

[reply]