From: Charles Sandmann <sandmann AT clio DOT rice DOT edu>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: gawk 3.1.1 DJGPP v2.04 on Windows 2000 Pro problem using system() function and LFNs
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 22:54:35 CST
Organization: Rice University, Houston TX
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> I did try this but as Eli says in his posting, I don't
> think that SHELL= should take parameters such as /C.

It's just what you need to pass to cmd.exe to get it to
execute the command after /C, then exit.

> i.e., despite ver and echo %COMSPEC% saying that
> we're using cmd.exe, DJGPP gawk's ENVIRON array
> thinks that we're using COMMAND.COM

Each DJGPP image is launched in a virtual DOS machine
(see ntvdm.exe in your task list) which has a 
command.com loaded.  So in a sense, you are under
command.com in that environment.  But CMD.EXE knows
how to launch programs in the VDM and pass parameters
to them.

> Is it possible that there's a bug in DJGPP libc's
> system() call?  I've d/l'd a copy of Andrew's latest
> version as per his post: it has a date of 24/01/02
> and the test shown above gives the same result.

Anything's possible - I try things on my Win98 
environment and Win2K and see if they act the same.
The source is always available :-)

> It looks as if Eli's comment that there is a bug
> somewhere is correct.  It could be in the way that
> gawk obtains the information for its ENVIRON array,
> but as I don't have the sources for the DJGPP v2.04
> gawk-3.1.1 I am not able to check this.

Don't worry about the "command.com" thing - it's normal.
Not handling spaces properly in passing - that might
be a real problem...