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Number   :  198
Date     :  2001-06-14
Author   :  Kan Yabumoto
Subject  :  The /X parameter syntax
Size(KB) :  3


At 2001-06-14 14:11, Ed Light wrote:
> >
> > This version handles some /X parameters which were not anticipated
> >
> > /Xdirname\*\ will be treated as equivalent to /Xdirname\*\*
> > /Xdirname\?\ will be treated as equivalent to /Xdirname\?\*
> >
> > The first line shown above was reported as a bug by Ed Light
>earlier.
> > Although we do not consider it a bug (we do concede that the
>
>Kan, in your doc #1 of 2000-01-04 you say:
>
>Exclusion specifier (xspec) syntax (consists of up to 3 parts):
> for file, [ dir_spec\ ] [ *\ ] [ ftemplate ]
> for dir, [ dir_spec\ ] [ *\ ] [ dtemplate ]
> dir_spec is always followed by a backslash (\). It specifies
> a directory (or directories with wildcard) which
> are relative to the source directory unless it
> starts with a \. A wildcard specifier is allowed
> only in the last element of dir_spec.
> *\ This second part specifies that the exclusion
> applies to all subdirectories under dir_spec.
-----------------

Apparently this is not well stated. The last sentence:

*\ This second part specifies that the exclusion
applies to all subdirectories under dir_spec.

Should have been worded as:

*\ This second part specifies that the template (the third
part, either ftemplate or dtemplate) applies to all
subdirectories under the dir_spec.

But, regardless of the wording, the syntactic specification
in here should allow the way Ed uses (C:\MYDIR\*\).
As I said, this obviously legal string was not "anticipated"
by XXCOPY --- programmer's oversight on this one. It's just
a careless mistake.

So, the current syntactic rule (the rule and the documentation
hasn't changed but "our understanding" of our own rules and
documentation has been corrected, thanks to Ed) says:

mydir\
mydir\*\
mydir\*\*
mydir\*\*\
mydir\*\*\*
...

All of the above are equivalent and they denote the whole
directory under mydir\.

mydir\?\
mydir\?\*
mydir\?\*\
mydir\?\*\*
mydir\?\*\*\
...

All of the above are equivalent and they denote all of the
subdirectories but not the first-level files inside mydir\.


>So I read that to read tack *\ onto dir_spec\
>
>like: C:\MYDIR\*\
>
>Does C:\MYDIR\*\* include subdirectories as well as the target
>directory?

Yes.

> Or, now that *\ = \*\*, does *\ include the target and
>all subdirectories?

Yes, that is true. All of the four forms you showed are
all equivalent.

>Does the pre-beta version hate *\ and respond to *\* by excluding the
>target and its subdirectories? The doc #1 seemed to me to say that
>*\* does "full directory." That sounded like just the parent
>directory to me.

The new method clarified here (that five of each examples above)
all denote the same thing. It just happened that the \*\ construct
somehow never occurred to me when I wrote the program (and the docs),
therefore, any version earlier than v2.56.2 fails to recognize
the exclusion items which ends with the "*\" sequence.

-----------

FYI, I hate to say that this is not the last word on the /X feature.
There is another bug which we are working on :-( But, that is
related to the default drive letter (if you omit in the exclusion
item). It should be fixed shortly...


Kan Yabumoto

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