From:	kagel AT quasar DOT bloomberg DOT com
Date:	Tue, 18 Feb 1997 17:21:46 -0500
Message-Id:	<9702182221.AA02212@quasar.bloomberg.com >
To:	gfoot AT mc31 DOT merton DOT ox DOT ac DOT uk
Cc:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
In-Reply-To:	<5e9bn0$i63@news.ox.ac.uk> (gfoot@mc31.merton.ox.ac.uk)
Subject:	Re: Forgive my ignorance, but can someone answer a question for me?
Reply-To:	kagel AT dg1 DOT bloomberg DOT com

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   From: gfoot AT mc31 DOT merton DOT ox DOT ac DOT uk (George Foot)
   Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
   Date: 17 Feb 1997 10:25:36 GMT
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   Eli Zaretskii (eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il) wrote:

   : The problem is that many Unix programs
   : have built-in assumptions about how valid pathnames look: they only
   : know about forward slashes, treat any pathname that doesn't begin with
   : a slash as relative to the working directory (what about "d:/path"?)
   : and don't know anything about drive letters.  

   Since DJGPP is a Unix-style environment, wouldn't it be sensible to refer to
   the drives as /c/djgpp/bin/gcc.exe, /d/prog/myprog/myprog.cc, etc? Maybe not
   force this notation, since the programs are running on Dos systems, but just
   allow it so that Unix-based programs can be ported more easily.

   OTOH, this would interfere with people who do have directories called c, d,
   etc. in their root directory. Maybe there's a symbol which is valid in Unix
   filenames but not in Dos ones? Then the drive-directories could be prefixed
   with this symbol.

You know in my Linux installation I mount the DOS drives to /c: and /d:.
Why not just map /c:/... TO c:/..., etc.

The real problem is not mapping UNIX style names to DOS but DOS style symantics
to UNIX style filenames.  For example C:DIR1/DIR2/file in DOS means file named
'file1' in the DIR2 subdirectory of the DIR1 subdirectory of the current
directory on C drive.  There is no such concept as current directory in UNIX
style filenames.  Everything else, IMHO, is easily mapped.  Solve this one and
you are on your way.  You would have to workout a symbol for 'current directory'.

-- 
Art S. Kagel, kagel AT quasar DOT bloomberg DOT com

A proverb is no proverb to you 'till life has illustrated it.  -- John Keats

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