I have two programs, HUNT and FILGEN, which use FindFirst, HUNT also
uses FindNext.  16-bit FILGEN cannot see CON - why?

HUNT is TP5 compatible, compiled with BP7 real mode.
FILGEN16 is FILGEN.PAS compiled with BP7 real mode.
FILGEN32 is FILGEN.PAS compiled with Delphi 3 console mode.

HUNT CON returns
                 2002/12/07-21:56:14 CON     .          666 ......T.
FILGEN16 CON gives
                FILGEN16: Name "con" not found, DosError=3  EL=2.
FILGEN32 CON gives (on one line)
                2002-12-07 21:57:50 CON.                    666
                                        .........  "C:\pas-prog\CON"

That's in a Win98 DOS box.

In DOS6.20, HUNT gives similar, but 54849 bytes; and FILGEN16 gives
similar, but DosError=18.

Similarly with NUL instead of CON.

It would be nice to understand this, and nicer if FILGEN16 would work
with CON.

Any thoughts?

Neither used FileMode; setting FileMode := 0 makes no difference.

DOSERROR :
     2 File not found
     3 Path not found
    18 No more files

Greetings

"Dr John Stockton" <s...@merlyn.demon.co.uk> schreef in bericht
news:bu2a3rDCR389Ew8x@merlyn.demon.co.uk...

COPY CON Myfile.txt
this is the text.
<ctrl> Z

you get the answer
1 file copied
Type DIR and you will see that you have created the file Myfile.txt

If you want to have a command line parameter string CON, you must simply
discriminate it from the parameter list, and react to it in the ordinary
way with readkey etc. Or perhaps you can reassign the standard input to
a file in case the paramstring is NOT equal to CON

Program tesinput(input,output);
uses dos;
var  s:string;
begin
  if paramstr(1)<>'con' then assign(input,'myfile.txt');
  {$I-}
  reset(input);
  {$I+}
  while not eof(input) do
  begin
    readln(s);
    writeln(s);
  end;
  close(input)
end.

Run it with con as parameter and it will display any text typed on the
keyboard and will do so until you type <ctrl>Z    (=eof)
Run it with any other filename and it will display the contents of that
file.

The problem is one of why the 16-bit BP7 program FILGEN fails to see CON
with FindFirst, when the 16-bit BP7 program HUNT sees CON and the 32-bit
D3 console mode program FILGEN also sees CON - all being run in the same
Win98 DOS box.

FILGEN16 cannot see CON or con.

None of them, however, show CON on being asked for CO* or CO*.*.

I am reminded that, given CON, HUNT actually seeks CON.* and finds CON;
given CON., it seeks CON. and finds CON.

FILGEN32, given CON or CON., finds; but does not find for CON.*.

FILGEN16 finds for none of those.

The problem is the *difference* between the two 16-bit versions, and
that between FILGEN 16 & 32, while HUNT (16) matches FILGEN32.

HUNT & FILGEN ZIPs via sig line 3.

"Dr John Stockton" <s...@merlyn.demon.co.uk> schreef in bericht news:eZrrqwAwig99Ewnt@merlyn.demon.co.uk...

begin of your mainprogram in hunt.pas:

| BEGIN ;
| Assign(Scrn, 'CON') ; Rewrite(Scrn) ;

might this cause the difference?

i'm using w2k and "hunt CON" returns 0 machtes.

on your exe, on a recomliled tp7-exe and even when using the version
without your rewrite ...

but dosbox w98 and dosbox w2k are really different.

FILGEN32 gets results for all the special names - CLOCK$ NUL PRN CON -
that I've tried, and so does HUNT, but not FILGEN16.  But thanks for
looking.

There'll be a new FILGEN.ZIP very soon; can report disk size and free,
and FILGEN32 will be able to report sizes over 2GB - perhaps up to 9EB.