From: Kbwms AT aol DOT com
Message-ID: <312e38e8.2444dced@aol.com>
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 13:46:21 EDT
Subject: Re: LBInstDJ
To: eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il (Eli Zaretskii)
CC: broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de, djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
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Subj:	 Re: LBInstDJ
To:	eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il (Eli Zaretskii)
CC:	broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de (Hans-Bernhard Broeker), 
djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com

Dear Eli Zaretskii,

On 04-13-99 at 03:03:32 EST you wrote:
>
>
> On Mon, 12 Apr 1999 Kbwms AT aol DOT com wrote:
>
> > I find it a chilling prospect that we would propose making automatic
> > changes to autoexec.bat.  I, for one, have two safeguards:
> >
> >     1) My autoexec.bat is a read-only file (as is config.sys).
> >
> >        What is planned in this case?
>
> What *should* be planned?  The installer could do anything, provided
> that we agree it's a good idea.  In particular, if you copy the
> original and edit the copy, the OS removes the protection by default,
> unless the installer is careful to copy the protection as well.
>

What does the installer do with the copy?  Surely, the protection on the
original will not be violated, will it?  If I am expected to review the
copy to determine subsequent steps to be taken, that is acceptable.


> >     2) The lion's share of my work is done in a shell like Bash called
> >        KornShell.  The proposed changes will never be seen.
>
> Why not?  If the environment variables are set before the shell is
> launched, doesn't the shell inherit all of them, including PATH and
> DJGPP?

The PATH variable is set within the shell.  It is 252 characters long and
growing.  I gave up long ago trying to make the DOS path variable do much
in the way of useful work.  Recently, I entered DJGPP as the first entry
in the path string because it is useful to work in raw DOS on occasion.

I looked at the DOS path variable today and realized that there is a lot
of junk there that could be removed.  Also, I will arrange the DOS path
variable so that it can be inherited by KornShell.  Thanks for the idea.


K.B. Williams