[comp.sys.ibm.pc] environment variables

woan@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Ronald S. Woan) (09/26/88)

I remeber someone posting this query earlier in the month, but I have
not seen any replies. Here's the question again:

	Is there any way to set a environment variable (i.e. PATH) to a
	string greater than 128 characters in length? If so, will DOS
	use the whole string?



					Ron
					woan@cory.berkeley.edu

wfp@dasys1.UUCP (William Phillips) (09/30/88)

It depends on what version of DOS you are using.  If it's earlier than 3.1,
it _might_ be possible to do it through a program.  If it is 3.1 (I am told
this only works with some copies, but it's always worked for me), you need
to put something like the following in your CONFIG.SYS:

shell=c:\command.com /p/e:16

where the number following e: is the number of PARAGRAPHS (16 byte blocks)
you want for the environment.  In the example, e:16 will produce a 256-byte
environment.  This feature is undocumented (though I have heard that _some_
MS-DOS manuals mention it (?)).

Under 3.2 and 3.3, the number following e: is the number of BYTES you want
for the environment.  I believe this is documented.

I haven't the foggiest notion how to do it under 4.0.

Hope this helps.

-- 
William Phillips                 {allegra,philabs,cmcl2}!phri\
BEC Public Excess Unix           {bellcore,cmcl2}!cucard!dasys1!wfp
New York, NY, USA                !!! JUST SAY "NO" TO OS/2 !!!