From:	j DOT aldrich6 AT genie DOT com
Message-Id:	<199604090252.AA121448338@relay1.geis.com>
Date:	Tue, 9 Apr 96 02:52:00 UTC 0000
To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Mime-Version:	1.0
Subject:	Paths and .COM files

I have been considering writing a DOS version of Unix 'whence', and
a couple of questions have cropped up.

First:  In what order does DOS examine a root filename for valid
executable extensions?  My experiments would suggest that it looks
for .COM, followed by .EXE, and finally .BAT, but I'd like some
confirmation.

Second, is it possible for DJGPP to create .COM files?  I think someone
asked this before, but I don't remember the answer.  During the above-
mentioned experimentation, I tried compiling a sample 'Hello world'
program as a .COM like so:

gcc -o foo.com foo.c

I was expecting gcc to pop out with an error, but it actually seemed to work.
However, when I ran the program, it failed utterly.  Actually, now that I think
about it, gcc probably just created its usual coff image and just named it
'foo.com', which caused DOS to barf because it wasn't in the right format.
Does anybody here know exactly what would be required to go about
creating a .COM as opposed to an .EXE?

Thanks,

John

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