OpenEuphoria

system() and copy in DOS

• Posted by Travis Beaty <tbeaty at osage.net> Jul 29, 2003
• 539 views

Hello Everyone!

I am currently working an application that is mainly for Linux, but I am 
trying to make it cross platform.  If the user starts the application 
with the command option -g, the application will copy a template 
configuration file from its home directory into the user's current 
directory.

In Linux, this works fine.  However, in Windows XP I'm having a bit of a 
problem because the filename being copied is truncated to eight 
characters.  Apparently it is a problem with long filenames, which as I 
recall Euphoria has had some issues with in the past.  I don't think 
that it is Euphoria though, because of the fact that Euphoria isn't 
actually doing the copying, it is simply calling the DOS copy command 
via a call to system().

Here is the relevant code, which further description below.

-- start code

function copyTemplate(sequence name)

   integer ok, loc
   sequence bkname

   if giOperatingSystem = LINUX then
     system("cp -f --backup " & sWhereAmI & "Eudoxy.tpl " & name, 2)
     ok = sequence(dir(name))
   else
     if sequence(dir(name)) then
       bkname = reverse(name)
       loc = find('.', bkname)
       if loc != 0 then
         bkname = reverse(bkname[loc .. length(bkname)]) & "bak"
       else
         bkname = reverse(bkname) & ".bak"
       end if
       if sequence(dir(bkname)) then
         system("del " & bkname, 2)
       end if
       system("copy " & name & " " & bkname, 2)
       system("del " & name, 2)
     end if

     -- Here's where things get all ate up.
     system("copy " & sWhereAmI & "Eudoxy.tpl " & name, 2)

     ok = sequence(dir(name))
   end if
   if ok then
     puts(1, "\n\n" &
       "A template configuration file named " & name & " has been\n" 
      &
       "created for you in the directory from which you called\n" &
       "eudoxy.\n\n"   &

       "To customize eudoxy's settings, just edit that file.  For\n" &
       "more information, see the notes in the template file, or\n" &
       "eudoxy's documentation.\n\n" & 


       "Bye!\n")
     return 1
   else
       puts(1, "eudoxy:  error:  unable to create " & name & "\n\n")
       return 0
   end if

end function

-- end code

Okay, looking at the ex.err file, I confirmed that the following 
variables have the following values:

sWhereAmI = "c:\\maple4\\eudoxy\\src"
name = "Eudoxyfile"
bkname = "Eudoxyfile.bak"

Now, based upon these values, the command that system() should be 
issuing is:

copy c:\maple4\eudoxy\src\Eudoxy.tpl Eudoxyfile

The file that I'm getting when this is executed via system() is EUDOXYFI

I've typed in the above command manually at the DOS prompt, and it works 
fine, resulting in the file EUDOXYFILE.  I can't quite understand what 
is going on here, because it seems that copy is displaying two different 
behaviors based upon whether or not it is being called from Euphoria.

This might be a real simple thing I'm just not getting.  If anyone could 
shed some light on this, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks!

Travis Beaty
Osage, Iowa.

P.S.  As a side note, the DOS command window in XP is flaky as hell.