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Re: Makefile portability

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Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> writes:
> On Mon, 02 May 2011 13:41:56 +0100, Rainer Weikusat wrote:
>>> On Windows, using a Unix shell is usually a particularly bad idea, one of
>>> the main reasons for which is that the Unix shell treats the Windows
>>> directory separator character (backslash) as an escape character.
>> 
>> The person who added hierarchical filenames to MS-DOG version 2 chose
>> to use the UNIX(*)/C escape character as default directory separator
>> in 198x. This was a particularly bad idea, but the path separator
>> character was actually configurable for (some versions of) DOS and
>> (current versions of) Windows support both / and \.
>
> Most of Windows supports both / and \, but many standard command-line
> utilities use / for indicating flags (like Unix uses a dash). This
> convention was inherited from CP/M, with which DOS was intended to be
> backward-compatible.

... roughly, until version 2, when the 'CP/M thingies' like FCBs where
deprecated and replaced by 'UNIX(*) thingies' like numerical file
descriptors and hierarchical pathnames. 

> But unlike Unix, flags don't have to be preceded by whitespace (a
> DOS/Windows command line is just a string, not a list of strings; parsing
> the command line into "char **argv" is left up to the individual
> program).

Unlike UNIX(*), where the command interpreter parses command-lines and
does stuff like 'wildcard expansion' and all other kinds of 'fancy'
substitutions, the MS-DOS shell was really primitive and all of this
supposed to re-implemented in each and every application ...

> So you can't reliably use / as the directory separator when passing
> filenames to external commands.

... and - of course - 3/5 of these applications are broken in this
respect (at least insofar they haven't been implemented by Microsoft)
and because of this, something like 'a uniform command-lines syntax'
doesn't exist until this day in Microsoft-land (as far as I know this
--- past command-line tools for DOS used to implement all kinds of
conventions, depending on whatever the taste(s) of their respective
developers happened to be).

But unless I'm very much mistaken, this is a group dedicated to
UNIX(*) programming and not to historical deficiencies of 'outmoded'
Microsoft operating systems you consider to be 'features' ...

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Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-04-25 04:54 -0700
  Re: Makefile portability Leclerc <gordan.sikic.remove@this.inet.hr> - 2011-04-26 08:51 +0200
    Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-04-26 04:25 -0700
    Re: Makefile portability Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-04-26 16:18 +0100
      Re: Makefile portability William Ahern <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2011-04-26 11:19 -0700
        Re: Makefile portability Jonathan de Boyne Pollard <J.deBoynePollard-newsgroups@NTLWorld.COM> - 2011-04-27 18:53 +0100
          Re: Makefile portability "Charlie Gibbs" <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2011-04-27 14:14 -0800
            Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-04-30 01:07 -0700
              Re: Makefile portability Jonathan de Boyne Pollard <J.deBoynePollard-newsgroups@NTLWorld.COM> - 2011-04-30 13:45 +0100
            Re: Makefile portability Jonathan de Boyne Pollard <J.deBoynePollard-newsgroups@NTLWorld.COM> - 2011-04-30 13:14 +0100
            Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-04-28 00:02 -0700
              Re: Makefile portability Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2011-04-28 20:43 +0100
                Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-04-28 13:57 -0700
                Re: Makefile portability Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2011-04-29 11:18 +0100
                Re: Makefile portability Jonathan de Boyne Pollard <J.deBoynePollard-newsgroups@NTLWorld.COM> - 2011-04-29 20:43 +0100
                Re: Makefile portability Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2011-04-30 11:38 +0100
              Re: Makefile portability and file utility programs Jonathan de Boyne Pollard <J.deBoynePollard-newsgroups@NTLWorld.COM> - 2011-04-29 20:27 +0100
                Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-04-29 15:26 -0700
                Re: Makefile portability Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-04-29 23:45 +0100
                Re: Makefile portability Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2011-04-30 11:26 +0100
      Re: Makefile portability Leclerc <gordan.sikic.remove@this.inet.hr> - 2011-04-27 09:28 +0200
  Re: Makefile portability Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-04-26 11:28 -0700
    Re: Makefile portability Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-04-26 21:41 +0100
      Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-04-26 23:17 -0700
        Re: Makefile portability Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-04-27 14:08 +0100
      Re: Makefile portability Leo Havmøller <rtxleh@nospam.nospam> - 2011-04-27 13:15 +0200
        Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-04-27 05:50 -0700
          Re: Makefile portability Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2011-04-28 20:36 +0100
            Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-04-28 14:12 -0700
              Re: Makefile portability Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2011-04-29 11:03 +0100
                Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-04-29 09:30 -0700
      Re: Makefile portability Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-04-27 15:08 -0700
        Re: Makefile portability Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-04-27 15:17 -0700
          Re: Makefile dependency graphs gordonb.d36yw@burditt.org (Gordon Burditt) - 2011-04-30 02:02 -0500
            Re: Makefile dependency graphs Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-04-30 00:36 -0700
          Re: Makefile dependency graphs Michael Press <rubrum@pacbell.net> - 2011-04-30 01:13 -0700
            Re: Makefile dependency graphs William Ahern <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2011-04-30 11:30 -0700
              Re: Makefile dependency graphs Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-04-30 15:44 -0700
              Re: Makefile dependency graphs Michael Press <rubrum@pacbell.net> - 2011-05-03 11:48 -0700
          Re: Makefile dependency graphs Jonathan de Boyne Pollard <J.deBoynePollard-newsgroups@NTLWorld.COM> - 2011-04-30 12:59 +0100
          Re: Makefile dependency graphs Jonathan de Boyne Pollard <J.deBoynePollard-newsgroups@NTLWorld.COM> - 2011-04-29 02:55 +0100
            Re: Makefile dependency graphs William Ahern <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2011-04-28 19:52 -0700
              Re: Makefile dependency graphs Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-04-29 02:10 -0700
                Re: Makefile dependency graphs Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-04-29 20:59 +0100
                Re: Makefile dependency graphs Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-04-29 15:21 -0700
                Re: Makefile dependency graphs Jonathan de Boyne Pollard <J.deBoynePollard-newsgroups@NTLWorld.COM> - 2011-04-29 20:08 +0100
                Re: Makefile dependency graphs Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-04-29 15:08 -0700
                Re: Makefile dependency graphs Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-04-29 16:11 -0700
              Re: Makefile dependency graphs William Ahern <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2011-04-29 16:03 -0700
                Re: Makefile dependency graphs Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-04-29 16:48 -0700
                Re: Makefile dependency graphs Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-04-29 16:54 -0700
  Re: Makefile portability Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2011-04-28 20:33 +0100
    Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-04-28 14:20 -0700
    Re: Makefile portability Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-04-30 18:03 +0100
      Re: Makefile portability William Ahern <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2011-04-30 12:01 -0700
      Re: Makefile portability Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2011-05-01 12:33 +0100
        Re: Makefile portability Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-05-02 03:44 +0100
          Re: Makefile portability William Ahern <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2011-05-01 21:27 -0700
          Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-05-02 00:11 -0700
      Re: Makefile portability Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-05-02 13:41 +0100
        Re: Makefile portability Freedom on the Oceans <alex.buell@munted.org.uk> - 2011-05-02 14:36 +0100
          Re: Makefile portability tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2011-05-02 08:09 -0700
        Re: Makefile portability Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-05-02 23:49 +0100
          Re: Makefile portability Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-05-03 10:41 +0100
            Re: Makefile portability Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-05-05 08:30 +0100

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