From: earnie_boyd AT yahoo DOT com (Earnie Boyd) Subject: Re: Asterisk expansion... 27 Jul 1998 19:00:06 -0700 Message-ID: <19980727133931.21749.rocketmail.cygnus.gnu-win32@send1b.yahoomail.com> Reply-To: earnie_boyd AT yahoo DOT com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii To: Fergus Henderson Cc: gw32 ---Fergus Henderson wrote: > > On 24-Jul-1998, Earnie Boyd wrote: > > ---"Robertson, Jason V" wrote: > > > > > > Hi, > > > > > > 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? > > > > It is the shells job to do the globbing not the programs. > > Then why does gnu-win32 do the globbing in the case of the command > `echo *.*'? In the case of the DOS shell command `ECHO' or `echo' is a shell builtin; therefore, gnu-win32 doesn't even enter the picture. In the case of the bash shell command `echo' is a shell builtin and globbing happens as expected. Yes, I know there is an echo.exe; but, unless you explicitely execute it you execute the builtin command. To answer your question though, gnu-win32 globs the command line again so that the filesystem emulation can happen rather seamlessly. You responded to Michael Hirmke: > 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. This is an incorrect statement due to the first fact I stated. When doing `echo \*.\*' within the DOS shell the globbing that occurs within cmd.exe or command.com will not find a file and then returns \*.\* to echo as the parameter list which it will simply write to stdout. == - \\||// ---o0O0--Earnie--0O0o---- --earnie_boyd AT yahoo DOT com-- ------ooo0O--O0ooo------- _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com - For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to "gnu-win32-request AT cygnus DOT com" with one line of text: "help".