From: bpmurray*STUFFER*@socrates.cgl.ucsf.EDU (Bernard P. Murray, PhD)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: is this right?
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 18:54:05 -0700
Organization: University of California, San Francisco
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Message-ID: <bpmurray*STUFFER*-3012981854050001@macmac-2.ucsf.edu>
References: <19981229224534 DOT 7612 DOT rocketmail AT send105 DOT yahoomail DOT com> <76c008$1j6$1 AT lucille DOT cc DOT swin DOT edu DOT au> <368b2c95 DOT 1248268 AT news>
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In article <368b2c95 DOT 1248268 AT news>, fprintf AT iname DOT com wrote:

> Jeremy, what does the %path% do, anyway?
> 
> On 30 Dec 1998 01:35:04 GMT, 075557 AT bud DOT swin DOT edu DOT au (Tarragon Allen)
> wrote:
> 
> >Essidartha Emerald (essidartha AT yahoo DOT com) wrote:
> >: IS THIS THE RIGHT WAY TO EDIT IT?
> >: ---------------------------------
> >: set DJGPP=C:\DJGPP\DJGPP.ENV
> >: path=c:\ca_appsw;c:\java\bin;c:\djgpp\bin;%path%
> >
> >       Yes.  However, be careful using %path% in your path statement -- I 
> >never found it reliable (until I started using 4DOS).  So, I would 
> >recommend defining your path explicitly.
> >
> >                       Jeremy W. Murphy
> 
> - ratboy
> aka stuarthall AT geocities DOT com

Okay, I'll bite.  My opinion on the "right way to do it"
is;

If your current AUTOEXEC.BAT has the line,
     path=c:\ca_appsw;c:\java\bin

Then you change your AUTOEXEC.BAT as follows,
     path=c:\ca_appsw;c:\java\bin
     set DJGPP=C:\DJGPP\DJGPP.ENV
     path=c:\djgpp\bin;%path%

In other words you *add* another PATH setting rather
than messing with the original.  The %path% is the
environment variable that contains your original
PATH setting (ie. c:\ca_appsw;c:\java\bin) so
the second PATH command tells your operating system
to start looking for commands; firstly in your DJGPP
bin directory, and secondly in the directories that
were in your original PATH (ie. next in c:\ca_appsw
and then lastly in c:\java\bin).

This method is the one recommended in the DJGPP FAQ
in that you *add* the two simple lines to your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file rather than messing with the existing
PATH declaration.  Implicit in this intruction is that
the PATH setting with the djgpp\bin directory in it
comes after any other PATH declarations.
     This sort of game is particularly useful when
you are connected to a network and you inherit a
skeleton path from the server that you then modify on
your own machine.  Also, if you want to see %VAR%
being used in a flexible manner just have a quick
look at your DJGPP.ENV file.

In the example that you gave above
(path=c:\ca_appsw;c:\java\bin;c:\djgpp\bin;%path%)
the %path% variable will be empty as this is the first
time that you are defining it.  This formal declaration
will certainly work but the djgpp\bin directory will
be searched *after* the other two so any "inferior"
commands with the same name as DJGPP versions (especially
fc and mv) will be used instead of the DJGPP binaries.
     I hope that this helps and will be happy to be
corrected if I made a mistake in the explanation
(let's finish '98 off in the way I started).
          Bernard
-- 
Bernard P. Murray, PhD
Dept. Cell. Mol. Pharmacol., UCSF, San Francisco, USA