Mail Archives: opendos/1997/10/13/19:03:46
> I am looking for "ls" that is:
> a) softlinks-aware
Um. Which soft links?
* The ls that comes with the shareware xfs program can list Unix
features like this, provided we are talking about a Unix nfs-mounted
file system in the first place.
* I wrote a program a while back to create _hard_ links (which the
standard chkdsk doesn't like... not too much ofg a problem now 'cause
chkdsk has to be rewritten anyway, for long names). Normal directory
listing program work with my hard links.
* I would like to see a new filesystem for DOS that supports links and
such like (and am working on such an animal, which I call ALFS, now).
But we'd have to have all sorts of new system calls etc to take
advantage of radically-improved file systems.
* Win95 has "shortcuts" that are much like soft links. I've been
thinking of supporting them in some of my utilities - already they can
be recognised as a shortcut, but still the resolution of the link isn't
used in listing the file size, attributes, etc. Win95 has poor support
for its own shortcuts - only in the GUI, not command.com, and if a .lnk
file is renamed Win95 won't realise it is a shortcut.
* I would really like to support soft links when running OpenDOS under
Linux via dosemu... I have written a program for fun that lists such
special files by recognising the Linux name for a directory mounted
using LREDIR, then issuing an "ls" command with the corrected directory
name to Linux via an interupt call like the "unix" command. Not exactly
elegant, but it works.
> b) device files-aware
> c) LFN-aware
The LONGNAME TSR that extends OpenDOS 7.01 to use Win95-style long
filenames is usable by the new COMMAND.COM for OpenDOS, by the Win95
COMMAND.COM (need to use SETVER), and by 4DOS. My new XDIR command
uses long filenames when needed and can be made to output in Unix "ls"
format (either SET COMPATIBILITY=UNIX before running the command, or
use /FORM=Unix as an option, e.g. DEFKEY LS=C:\MARK\XDIR /F=U $* or
something like that).
I had to specially modify my xdir program to work around a bug that
shows up in Win95 but not OpenDOS - you cannot use the LFN calls to
find devices (such as CON, LPT2).
When I've finished upgrading my XDIR to use shortcuts and Unix links via
XFS, I'll release it generally.
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Mark Aitchison, Physics & Astronomy \_ Phone : +64 3 3642-947 a.h. 3371-225
University of Canterbury, </ Fax : +64 3 3642-469 or 3642-999
Christchurch, New Zealand. /) E-mail: phys169 AT csc DOT canterbury DOT ac DOT nz
#include <disclaimer.std> (/' Callsign: ZL3TQE
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