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Number   :  76
Date     :  2001-05-17
Author   :  Kan Yabumoto
Subject  :  Re: /WD switch -> a Quiz
Size(KB) :  2


At 2001-05-17 12:55, you wrote:
>The documentation for the /WD switch says:
>
>"Prompts with a warning for copying a non-directory source"
>
>I don't really understand what this refers to. Can somebody give me an
>example of a command that would produce the warning? I tried to make a
>command that would produce the warning but couldn't do it.

=======================================================================

Hi, everybody:

For a change, this is a quiz for the discussion group members.

Admittedly, the description of some switches are hard to understand,
especially in the one-liner format. Usually, we try to add some more
description elsewhere. In the case of /WD and /WD0 switch, the warning
itself carries an instruction of how to remove it and that's normally
sufficient. But, that's not the way a good documentation should be.

OK, the /WD switch was added recently to warn an obscure form of
user-error which is syntactically acceptable command. It is easier
to explain this command by an example and what is the implication.

XXCOPY C:\mydir D:\dest /I /S /E

This innocent looking line has funny and hard-to-find side effect.
When your C: drive has a directory called "mydir" in the root,
everything will go as most people intend by this command.
That is, it will copy the whole contents of the c:\MYDIR\ directory
into the destination directory with all subdirectories including
empty directories.

What if there is no directory called "mydir" in the root directory?
Most XXCOPY users would not answer this question correctly.
A typical end result of this boring looking command is equally
hard to guess for an average XXCOPY user unless he has seen it
and has analyzed the result carefully and understood what has
happened.

Well, I will not give you the answer right away. If you
are curious, please run the command. Since the result would
be somewhat hard to guess, I suggest you specify a non-existent
directory for the destination so that it will be easy to undo
the funny (unexpected result).

If you know the answer and can explain what it is, please post
your analysis of this command in the discussion group.

Incidentally, XXCOPY will display a puzzling warning prompt
in responce to this command with a special tip of how to remove
the user prompt in the future. If you carefully analyze the
situation, the warning message should give you the clue.

Later today, I will post a complete description of the situations
which is related to the issues and the condition where you need
the /WD and /WD0 switches.


Kan Yabumoto

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