in reply to Re: Re: Re: Glob on Win32: porting 5.005 to 5.6
in thread Glob on Win32: porting 5.005 to 5.6

Perl's automagical conversion of / to \ for Win 32 is great.

Mostly FYI, Perl doesn't convert / to \ for Win32. Win32 itself accepts / as a path separator almost everywhere. Even command.exe accepts / as a path separator. But most tools from Microsoft that access file names on their command line don't allow / as a path separator (because they use / to introduce command-line options).

Strangely, "open file" dialogues also don't accept / as a path separator, though I can find no reason why that should be (and this doesn't affect your Perl code unless you are stuffing fake keystrokes into a GUI with Perl, which is how I noticed this).

Also, the Registry doesn't allow / as a key path separator because you can use / as part of a key name. Luckilly, Win32::TieRegistry deals with this rather well so Perl coders don't have to fret about it.

So it is often best to use / as your directory path separator in Perl and convert / to \ if you need to hand the path to an external program on its command line.

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")
  • Comment on / vs. \ in Win32 (Re: Glob on Win32: porting 5.005 to 5.6)

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Re: / vs. \ in Win32 (Re: Glob on Win32: porting 5.005 to 5.6)
by tachyon (Chancellor) on Sep 04, 2001 at 19:37 UTC

    Even command.exe accepts / as a path separator.

    If command.com accepts / then why does it fail in the last case? 

    C:\>type test.bat
REM Hello tye!
C:\>type .\test.bat
REM Hello tye!
C:\>type ./test.bat
Invalid switch - /TEST.BAT

C:\>test.bat

C:\>REM Hello tye!

C:\>.\test.bat

C:\>REM Hello tye!

C:\>./test.bat
Bad command or file name

C:\>

    [download]

    cheers

    tachyon

    s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print

[reply]
[d/l]

      That was the type of thing I had tested before but testing it now shows command.exe not supporting it. It appears that I am correct that command.exe supports / as a directory path separator, it just doesn't always support it: 

      C:\>c:/temp/cleanpath.bat
Cleaning user-specific PATH:
...

      [download]

      Using Microsoft software, I often boggle.

              - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")
[reply]
[d/l]

        My testing was on 95, you are probably using NT/ME/2000 I suspect?

        cheers

        tachyon

        s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print

[reply]
      Microsoft showing what they really think of Slashdot? :)
      I get another error, not 'Bad Command...' but instead:
      '.' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

      [download]
      I suppose it's because I'm on Win2K, but it does seem to give a clue as to how Windows parses the command line...

      --- perchance
[reply]
[d/l]

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