WAD Possible Bug in Batch Parameters

[Jay Sage]

The help file says that the special character string %* represents, and I quote: "the complete command tail, unmodified by SHIFT". However, the following batch file

echo The number of arguments is %#
echo Command tail is :%$:
echo Command tail is :%*:​

when run with the argument "test" (without the quotes) produces the following output:

echo The number of arguments is %#
echo Command tail is :%$:
echo Command tail is :%*:​

WHOA! That's not what it produces. That's what copying and pasting from the TCMD17 screen produces (another bug?). Here's what I actually see on the screen:

echo The number of arguments is 1
echo Command tail is :test:
echo Command tail is :*:
​

So it appears that "%*" is not working. For me, it doesn't seem to be working in version 16 either.

-- Jay

 

[mikea]

FWIW...I'm still using v.15 -- I'm always slow to update -- and get unexpected results (like yours) with the statement containing %* when I use colons or single quotes (apostrophes, not back-quotes). I get the expected results when I use double quotes. (Talking about what the .btm file echoes to the terminal. I didn't also try copying and pasting from the screen.)

 

[vefatica]

echo Command tail is :%*:

That doesn't work in any TCC back to v11. But it does work if you remove the second ':'.

It also fails with any of these after the '*' ... *, \, !, @, #, $, %%, a-z, A-Z ... but /, (, and ) are OK.

I didn't try others.

 

[vefatica]

Jay, are you sure the copy error wasn't you ... copying the TYPEd file in TCMD? If you copied

echo The number of arguments is 1
echo Command tail is :test:
echo Command tail is :*:

and got

echo The number of arguments is %#
echo Command tail is :%$:
echo Command tail is :%*:

that would be one hell of a bug!

 

[rconn]

%* works fine, provided you don't append a colon. The only valid characters following a %* are a space, tab, ", |, <, >, {, }, (, ), ;, +, =, /, and '. Anything else stops the %* processing. (A colon is a particularly bad choice as a delimiter character, as it has a special meaning as a drive designator.)

%* is normally used at the end of a command line, or in a command group. What purpose did you have in enclosing it in colons?

I do not understand what you're saying about the cut & paste.

 

[vefatica]

Rex, can you tell us exactly what's happening there, and below? Is there some general principle involved?

v:\> echo %*
ECHO is OFF

v:\> echo :%*:
:*:

 

[Jay Sage]

Jay, are you sure the copy error wasn't you ... copying the TYPEd file in TCMD?

Maybe that is what happened. I selected the text in the TCMD window and used Ctrl-C to copy it, but maybe the copy failed, leaving the previous contents of the clipboard unchanged. As I think about it now, what I thought I saw is highly unlikely!

Rex, I was just trying to test the %* parameter and put some characters around it so I could see if any spaces were introduced. I had tried other characters with the same result. All this started when real code failed to work. That code may have had a command separator after the %* without any spaces.

A lot of my aliases and batch files are giving me trouble under version 17, and I have been forced to do a lot of editing. Things that worked before, even if they were illegal or discouraged, do not work now. One example is the use of %+ as a configuration-invariant command separator. For years in Z System (ZCPR) in the 8-bit world and in Unix I was used to using the semicolon as a command separator, and I continued to do so in TCC. I have finally bitten the bullet, accepted the default configuration, and converted my alias definitions. I still have to check all the batch files. This is painful, but it had to be done at some point.

-- Jay

 

[rconn]

Rex, can you tell us exactly what's happening there, and below? Is there some general principle involved?

v:\> echo %*
ECHO is OFF

v:\> echo :%*:
:*:

Same thing that has bitten you before - the ':' in a variable name is interpreted as string substitution syntax.