Done SETDOS suggestions

[Charles Dye]

Yeah, I know. But these should reduce support requests:

1. Doc change: Document that SETDOS /C /E and /P accept numeric character values, as well as literal characters. This syntax is less confusing because (a) it eliminates the need to escape characters with %= — I know how you love %= — and (b) avoids confusion with batch file encodings and code pages. Hex digits are the same in all encodings, at least until TCC supports EBCDIC batch files.

2. Code tweak: SETDOS /C /E /P should not permit the command separator/escape char/parameter char to be set to the percent sign, double quotes, or backquote — just as redirection characters, whitespace, comma, etc. are already forbidden.

 

[rconn]

I really, really, really, (really) don't want anyone using those options anymore. They were intended to ease the migration from 4DOS / COMMAND batch files to 4NT / CMD. As in 30 years ago ...

They vastly complicate the parser, create way too many incompatibilities (aka bogus "bug reports"), and provide nothing useful. At all.

I added a note to the help file for those three options to explicitly say they are obsolete, deprecated, and not recommended.

 

[Claire_CJS]

Systems aren’t always in control of the filenames they must work with.

setdos is 100% necessary to deal with the filenames that people encounter in the real world, particularly if the command separator is in the filename, the percent sign, or a semicolon.

It also seems to be very necessary if you use BAT files to generate other BAT files that use redirection, so you just want to echo the literal string "Echo %VARNAME% >file" to a file. Yea, we can enclose in ``backticks, but i’ve hit situations where the backticks get passed and am superstitious about it now.