Date: Tue, 23 Feb 93 15:27:58 EST
From: DJ Delorie <dj AT ctron DOT ctron DOT com>
To: bergman AT panix DOT com
Cc: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Subject: long args, mapping filenames to 8.3

>Why don't gcc, cpp, flex, etc. accept as many arguments as they are
>passed, as well as response files and environment variables? That way,
>PC users with kinder, gentler shells (MKS, 4DOS, various pd ksh, csh)
>that can pass long arguments don't have to go through contortions to
>use gcc? I don't feel up to hacking gcc source, so please let me know
>if there is a basic flaw that I'm missing?

Because MS-DOS allows you only 128 characters in the STATIC buffer
where your command lines are kept.  MS-DOS does NOT act like unix in
this way, it acts like CP/M.

DJ