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Re: Asterisk expansion...


On 24-Jul-1998, Michael Hirmke <mh@mike.franken.de> wrote:
> Hi Robertson,,
> 
> >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 *.*
> ><Contents of C: are listed>
> C:>> echo \*.\*
> >\*.\*
> >
> >So why does it expand the glob in the first instance, and not unescape
> >them in the second?  And doesn't this mean it's impossible to echo the
> >string:
> >*.*
> >from cmd?
> 
> You are assuming, that command.com / cmd.exe are using \ to escape
> characters, which isn't the case.

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.

However, gnu-win32 uses quotes rather than \ to escape the globbing
mechanism.  This seems like a reasonable design choice, given the 
use of "\" in DOS style path names.

-- 
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WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>  |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
PGP: finger fjh@128.250.37.3        |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.
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