Date: Tue, 30 Aug 94 12:07:34 EDT
From: peprbv AT cfa0 DOT harvard DOT edu (Bob Babcock)
To: jes AT mbio DOT med DOT upenn DOT edu
Cc: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Subject: Re: djgpp system call
Reply-To: babcock AT cfa DOT harvard DOT edu

> > But what if you have set SHELL=command.com?
> 
> Why would you do that?  The 'SHELL=' statement in CONFIG.SYS doesn't
> set the environment variable does it?

The oemacs shell-command runs the shell specified by the SHELL environment
variable (or at least that's what the info files say).  I'll admit that I
don't actually have a shell environment variable set, but it would not be
unreasonable for me to have done so.

> I think it's a safe bet that most of the source code used with djgpp will
> call system() with a command string that assumes sh semantics.

There are two uses for djgpp: (1) port unix software to DOS and (2) get
around the 640K limit in new or existing DOS software.  I doubt anyone has
any statistics on which use is more common, but it sounds like your use is
primarily #1 while mine is primarily #2.