On 11/26/06, Jim Jewett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 11/26/06, Mike Orr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On 11/26/06, Jim Jewett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > C: without a slash is effectively a mount point into > > > the current directory. > > > That's what I always thought "C:foo" is. But Glyph > > said it's more complicated than that: > > Most of the exceptions were things like the CON special file. These > make the windows (or DOS) filesystem wierd, but they aren't really > affected by C: vs C:\ > > CON, C:\dir1\CON, C:CON, and .\con all refer to the same special file.
Technically, every drive has a "current path". You can see this by doing the following on a Windows system (here, the prompt shows the current path) C:\Data>cd F:\Software *** Note from the following prompt that this does *not* change the current directory - because the current drive is C:, and we changed the directory on F: C:\Data>dir F:4nt.zip Volume in drive F is Data Volume Serial Number is 7043-3187 Directory of F:\Software [...] *** But note that F:4nt.zip is located in F:\Software, which is where we made the current directory on F: C:\Data>f: F:\Software> *** And if we go to the F: drive (unspecified directory) we get to \Software, the current directory on F:. Basically, Windows maintains a full set of current directories, one for each drive (actually stored as hidden environment variables named something like "=C:", "=D:" etc.) and D:foo refers to the file foo in the current directory on the D: drive. This is obscure to the point where I doubt anyone relies on it, but it's the sort of edge case that you need to get right or someone will complain in the end... :-) Nitpicking-ly y'rs Paul. _______________________________________________ Python-3000 mailing list [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-3000 Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-3000/archive%40mail-archive.com
