dap1@ihlpf.UUCP (07/12/83)
#N:ihlpf:17100011: 0:632
ihlpf!dap1 Jul 12 7:21:00 1983
Does anybody know how to set environmental variables under DOS 2.0 from inside
a program? This would be nice to allow programs to leave small amounts of
information lying around without having to kludge a temporary file on disk.
Also, my boot drive suddenly died recently and after taking it out and looking
at it, there appears to be some sort of string stuck on the head. Is there a
safe way of removing this stuff? It's not big enough to manhandle out but is
too big to get off with a cleaning disk.
Thanks,
Darrell Plankjcw@cvl.UUCP (07/13/83)
When COMMAND invokes a program, inside the program's Program Segment
Prefix is a pointer to its environment. However, it is a pointer to
a *copy* of the environment of the shell. The upshot is you can modify
the environment block to your heart's content but when the program exits
that block is freed up and the shell's block has not changed. That is
why set has to be an internal command. The only way I can think of to
change the shell's env. is to go searching blindly through memory for
it, and that's more than slightly gross.
A note a few days ago mentioned the ENVIRON statement (undocumented) in
BASIC 2.0, that sets environment variables. I thought that since BASIC
was done by Microsoft that it might implement some trick to permanently
change environment variables. No such luck, they go away too.
-Jay Weber {..!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!jcw}