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From: bet@ecsvax.UUCP (Bennett E. Todd III)
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: Changing the MSDOS option character
Message-ID: <488@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 25-Sep-85 12:57:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.488
Posted: Wed Sep 25 12:57:14 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Sep-85 06:49:23 EDT
References: <450@philabs.UUCP> <103700016@ima.UUCP> <1332@teddy.UUCP> <458@ttidcb.UUCP>
Reply-To: bet@ecsvax.UUCP (Bennett E. Todd III)
Distribution: net
Organization: Duke University Computation Center
Lines: 55

In article <458@ttidcb.UUCP> svirsky@ttidcb.UUCP (William Svirsky) writes:
>How do you change the option character to '-'?  If you can do this is it also
>possible to change the '\\' directory separator to '/'?  Thanks.

It's easy to change the switch character ("switchar" in MS-DOS parlance)
to anything you like; '-' is particularly handy, for conformance with
UNIX. As long as the switchar isn't '/' DOS will take either '\' or '/'
as the pathname separator. Here's a quick little program to display or
set the switchar. It's written in DeSmet C using inline assembler for
the DOS function call; it should be easy to use the assembler code with
other compilers and the MS-DOS assembler.
---------- switchar.c -- tabs set every 4 columns ---
/*
 * switchar [c]
 * With no arguments, displays the switch character
 * With an argument 'c', sets the switch character to 'c'
 */

main(argc, argv)
int argc;
char **argv;
{
	if (argc == 1)
		printf("switchar=%c\n", getswitchar());
	else
		setswitchar(argv[1][0]);
}

getswitchar()
{
#asm
	mov		ax,3700h
	int		21h
	mov		al,dl
	xor		ah,ah
#
}

setswitchar(c)
char c; /* BP+4 */
{
#asm
	mov		ax,3701h
	mov		dx,[bp+4]
	int		21h
#
}
------------- end of switchar.c -------------
-Bennett
-- 

"Hypocrisy is the vaseline of social intercourse." (Who said that?)

Bennett Todd -- Duke Computation Center, Durham, NC 27706-7756; (919) 684-3695
UUCP: ...{decvax,seismo,philabs,ihnp4,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!duccpc!bet