From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Fergus Henderson To: Michael Hirmke Cc: gnu-win32@cygnus.com Subject: Re: Asterisk expansion... Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1998 04:14:00 -0000 Message-id: <19980725211346.01827@mundook.cs.mu.OZ.AU> References: <7BEBE893ABDFD111AC3F00A0C96B159F5C4CD6@FMSMSX32> <6yUrB-W4pfB@mike.franken.de> X-SW-Source: 1998-07/msg00562.html On 24-Jul-1998, Michael Hirmke wrote: > Hi Robertson,, > > >There seems to be an inconsistency in how * is interpreted. When you > >run, say, 'echo.exe' from the commandline you get the following: > C:>> echo *.* > > > C:>> echo \*.\* > >\*.\* > > > >So why does it expand the glob in the first instance, and not unescape > >them in the second? And doesn't this mean it's impossible to echo the > >string: > >*.* > >from cmd? > > You are assuming, that command.com / cmd.exe are using \ to escape > characters, which isn't the case. No; he is assuming that gnu-win32 should use \ to escape characters. After all, it is gnu-win32 that is doing the globbing (expanding the wildcards), not command.com or cmd.exe. However, gnu-win32 uses quotes rather than \ to escape the globbing mechanism. This seems like a reasonable design choice, given the use of "\" in DOS style path names. -- Fergus Henderson | "I have always known that the pursuit WWW: < http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh > | of excellence is a lethal habit" PGP: finger fjh@128.250.37.3 | -- the last words of T. S. Garp. - For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to "gnu-win32-request@cygnus.com" with one line of text: "help".