lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (06/16/85)
I posted this a long time ago... but here it is again. In 2.X, you can put the switchar in your config. In both 2.X and 3.X, you can do the following: To determine current switchar: DOS call 0x37 with AL=0. Switchar is returned in DL. To set switchar: DOS call 0x37 with AL=1 and desired switchar in DL. Only setting the swithcar to '-' or '/' is terribly meaningful. Under 2.X, full pathnames as shown by DIR, etc. will have all \'s changed to /'s when you change the switchar. With 3.X, the DIR command will show some as \ and some as /, but it's only a cosmetic problem. Under both 2.X and 3.X, the file operation system calls all accept either \ or / as the path separator, regardless of switchar. --Lauren--
dan@digi-g.UUCP (Dan Messinger) (06/26/85)
In article <692@vortex.UUCP> lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) writes: >Under 2.X, full pathnames as shown by DIR, etc. will have all >\'s changed to /'s when you change the switchar. With 3.X, >the DIR command will show some as \ and some as /, but it's only >a cosmetic problem. Under both 2.X and 3.X, the file operation system >calls all accept either \ or / as the path separator, regardless of >switchar. Not quite true. Under 2.x, the path shown is how you enter it, so the current path could have both / and \ in it. Under 3.x, a / will be changed to \, so the current path will only contain \. With both, either a / or a \ may be entered to command.com (with switchar set to something else, like a -, of course). Under both, system calls can have either / or \ whether or not switchar has been set. *WARNING*. Under 2.x, if you have switchar=-, the RESTORE has problems. If you run BACKUP with switchar=-, BACKUP will build path names with /, but RESTORE doesn't check the state of switchar, and thus expects \! The end result is that you can't restore your files! BACKUP under 3.x always uses \, so there is no problem. Dan Messinger ihnp4!umn-cs!digi-g!dan