From: dg AT dcs DOT st-and DOT ac DOT uk
Message-Id: <14795.9702152115@pulteney.dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk>
To: opendos AT mail DOT tacoma DOT net
Subject: Re: [opendos] BAD Filesystems 
In-Reply-To: mharris@blackwidow.saultc.on.ca's message of Sat, 15 Feb 97 
 15:06:03 -0500.
	     <Pine DOT LNX DOT 3 DOT 95 DOT 970215150440 DOT 183D-100000 AT capslock DOT com> 
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Date: Sat, 15 Feb 97 21:15:46 +0000
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>> > I believe that COMMAND.COM / 4DOS allready allow you to do what
>> > you are suggesting by pressing a control character at the end of
>> > a line.  In plain ole COMMAND.COM without DOSKEY, I think that it
>> > is the ESC character although it has been 5 or 6 years since I
>> > remember.
[...]
>Nope, I tried for 5 minutes and read help and stuff.  Can't find
>it.  Well, it could be added if someone wants it.
[...]

There's a limit in DOS of 128 characters for the command line, after all environment variables have been expanded (this is the PATH limitation problem). I think this is because there's a fixed-size buffer. While it would be relatively trivial to add line continuation support, there wouldn't be a lot of point as anything longer than a line and a half wouldn't work.

I don't know how easy it would be to make the buffer longer --- how many command-line editing TSR's modify the buffer directly? Changing the size or position would confuse them horribly.

-- 
------------------- http://www-hons-cs.cs.st-and.ac.uk/~dg --------------------
   If you're up against someone more intelligent than you are, do something
    totally insane and let him think himself to death.  --- Pyanfar Chanur
---------------- Sun-Earther David Daton Given of Lochcarron ------------------