[ ghc-Bugs-1175454 ] System.system fails on windows98se, also disables ghci's :!

[Claus Reinke]

[don't want to reopen the ticket, don't like the mini comment field
on sf, and I no longer trust the handling of "\" on sf (see below);
so I'll reply here]

> I've fixed this, 6.4.1 should be better (though I can't test
> it, so I'd appreciate it if you would test a pre-release
> when the time comes).

Thanks. COMMAND.COM may still exist on newer windows
versions, which would allow you to do some testing by setting
%COMSPEC%? (ms/intel try to be backwards compatible with
their first abacus;)

But I'm looking forward to a first working windows release
candidate!-) when? and what about the ctrl-c horrors?

> I can use rawSystem to invoke cmd.exe /c here.  eg. this works:
>
>   rawSystem "c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe" ["/c", "dir"]

hey, who are you trying to fool now?-) the above isn't even legal Haskell!
[there are double backslashes in the sourceforge version, but not in
the ghc-bugs version????? I keep staring at your email, but I still can't
believe this!]

Appended at the end is a recap of what happens on my windows98se
system. Note that with separate option, there's an error message and
no listing, and with option/parameter as a single element, the "dir" at
least gets executed, but the error message is still there. If that works for
you, without errors, it almost sounds as if rawSystem is cmd.exe-specific,
instead of command-interpreter-independent, as was the idea? Or at
least it doesn't cooperate with COMMAND.COM (perhaps the syscall
you use works differently on win98?..).

Btw, I can produce the same effects within COMMAND.COM if I
put parts of the command line in quotes (don't know whether that
is a misleading coincidence or a useful hint):

D:\cygwin\home\unknown>command.com /c cd
D:\cygwin\home\unknown

D:\cygwin\home\unknown>command.com "/c" "cd"
Angegebenes COMMAND-Verzeichnis ist falsch
Befehl oder Dateiname nicht gefunden.

D:\cygwin\home\unknown>command.com "/c cd"
Angegebenes COMMAND-Verzeichnis ist falsch
D:\cygwin\home\unknown

D:\cygwin\home\unknown>

Cheers,
Claus

$ ghci
   ___         ___ _
  / _ \ /\  /\/ __(_)
 / /_\// /_/ / /  | |      GHC Interactive, version 6.4, for Haskell 98.
/ /_\\/ __  / /___| |      http://www.haskell.org/ghc/
\____/\/ /_/\____/|_|      Type :? for help.

Loading package base-1.0 ... linking ... done.
Prelude>
Prelude> System.Cmd.rawSystem "c:\windows\command.com" ["/c","dir"]
<interactive>:1:26: lexical error in string/character literal
Prelude> System.Cmd.rawSystem "c:\\windows\\command.com" ["/c","dir"]
Angegebenes COMMAND-Verzeichnis ist falsch
Befehl oder Dateiname nicht gefunden.
Prelude> System.Cmd.rawSystem "c:\\windows\\command.com" ["/c dir"]
Angegebenes COMMAND-Verzeichnis ist falsch

 Datenträger in Laufwerk D: hat keine Bezeichnung
 Seriennummer des Datenträgers: 417D-08FC
 Verzeichnis von D:\cygwin\home\unknown

.              <DIR>        06.04.02  21:34 .
..             <DIR>        06.04.02  21:34 ..
BASHRC~1               300  22.03.05  15:06 .bashrc
BASH_H~1             9.605  05.04.05   2:42 .bash_history
VIMINF~1            10.659  02.04.05  19:40 .viminfo
SSH~1          <DIR>        11.06.02   0:12 .ssh
CVSPAS~1                45  22.06.02  20:51 .cvspass
INDEX~1  HTM        52.045  10.06.03  23:27 index.html
BASHRC~2               302  19.03.05  13:14 .bashrc~
GETNAME  PL            140  24.09.03  14:27 getname.pl
EMACS~1  D     <DIR>        31.10.03  15:37 .emacs.d
_VIMINFO             8.430  29.05.04  16:26 _viminfo
FONTS~1  CAC             0  04.07.04  14:04 .fonts.cache-1
         9 Datei(en)                81.526 Bytes
         4 Verzeichnis(se)     165.695.488 Bytes frei
Prelude>

Prelude> System.Cmd.rawSystem "c:\\windows\\command.com" ["/c echo %PATH%"]
Angegebenes COMMAND-Verzeichnis ist falsch
"