Talk:Path (computing)

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In the Windows APIs and the DOS APIs since v2.0 (DOS v1.x didn't have directories) both "/" and "\" are valid path separators.

The problem is that command.com & cmd.exe (and in general: most command lines) treat "/" as an option prefix (I think this had originally something to do with CP/M compatibility) and because of that you can't always use "/" as a path separator there (you can when putting quotes around the path).

http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2004/03/16/90448.aspx#91398

And some interesting posts from a discussion on the Python mailing list about this: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2003-September/185204.html http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2003-September/185212.html http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2003-September/185217.html http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2003-September/185202.html

[edit] Unix conventions

PATH is the name of a variable which $PATH refers to. So the text should be PATH and not $PATH. See env (Unix). --DLL 17:09, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ARC paths

If someone could add some information on the ARC paths used in boot.ini on WinNT systems please do. Dustin 17:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC)