On 2005-05-12, Bengt Richter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>> There are several ways, but the preferred solution is to switch the
>>> slash direction: "c:/test.txt". Python's smart enough to notice its
>>> running on Windows and do the right thing with the slash.
>>
>>Does Python really look at the string and mess with the slash?
>>I don't think it needs to, since the Windows system calls have
>>always accepted forward slashses, haven't they?
>
> For a path parameter, I think so. But various command shells us '/' the
> way unix uses '-' -- i.e., for options/switches. E.g.
You're right. It's the applications that choke on the forward
slash. Back in the bad old days there was a way to tell DOS to
use '-' for the switch character, but not all apps paid
attention to the setting.
> I don't know why MS used backslashes when unix had a perfectly
> good path syntax (not to mention drive letter idiocy). Maybe
> some legal idiocy, wanting to be different to be safe from SCO
> types?
I think the use of forward slashes for command line switches
was adopted by CP/M from DEC's OSes (e.g. RSX-11). CP/M didn't
have directories in the beginning, so nobody worried about what
to use for path separators (DEC used colons, IIRC). DOS was a
straight-up ripoff of CP/M and kept '/' as the option
character. Later when directories were added to DOS, they
picked '\' as the path seperator becuase '/' was the default
switch caracter. The C-language "system calls" always accepted
either, but they may have been translating forward to backward
before making the DOS call calls.
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