bridger@RAND-UNIX.ARPA (07/29/86)
In ZCPR3, v. 3.0 and v. 3.14, the path-search code does something I haven't seen explained -- it masks the high bit of the user-number byte (and also, if the minpath option is used) the drive byte found in the path. From the comments with the code I am guessing that the intent was to use the hi bit in the path to specify directories (drive/user pairs) that "hide" non-system files. For example, if the path element for A3: has bit 7 set, then files in A3: which do not have the system-attribute bit set would not be found by (1) the .com file loader, and (2) the DIR command. However, the code doesn't really do this, at least if the minpath option is used. Does anyone know: is this the intent? does anyone use a path with hi bits set? Do the z3 tools and syslib routines behave correctly when a path contains a hi bit? --bridger