Dave wrote:
a) I'm not running Unix!
Revolution was originally created for Unix only, and many of its
commands and syntax structures mirror that. For example, we use forward
slashes ("/"), a unix convention, in all file paths regardless of the OS
the engine is running on. The original engine, MetaCard, ran exclusively
on unix systems for many years before a port to Windows was created, and
a couple more years after that before it moved to Macintosh. You will
find many commands in the documentation that are unix-only and have no
effect in other operating systems. All these reflect the original
MetaCard roots of the engine.
b) In the Unix the Command is "mv" (for move) and, AFAIR you can say:
mv /FolderA/FolderB/FolderC/Filex.xxx /FolderA/FolderB/FolderX/ which is
what I was doing in the first place!
I decided to look this up. The man entry for mv shows two forms of
syntax. The first form, which is the assumed default, is the one that
Revolution uses, and requires a file path for both parameters. The
second form is similar to the one you quote, but your method would
produce an error. The man entry says "It is an error for either the
source operand or the destination path to specify a directory unless
both do." The second form is apparently intended to move the file
contents of whole directories from one folder to another.
I just don't get it, you take the Unix "move" command, call it "rename"
and then stop it working like "move".
That doesn't seem to be the case. Revolution's rename command (which
doesn't exist in unix) is mapped to the mv command (which does) and uses
the first form, which is also the default form. I see below that there
are several flags which affect whether the mv command will prompt before
overwriting a file. I assume that to keep things simple, MetaCard used
no flags in its interpretation of the mv command and assumed the
developer would handle fie duplicates in scripts.
Here's the first part of the man entry, for reference:
SYNOPSIS
mv [-f | -i | -n] [-v] source target
mv [-f | -i | -n] [-v] source ... directory
DESCRIPTION
In its first form, the mv utility renames the file named by the source
operand to the destination path named by the target operand. This
form
is assumed when the last operand does not name an already existing
directory.
In its second form, mv moves each file named by a source operand to a
destination file in the existing directory named by the directory
operand. The destination path for each operand is the pathname produced by
the concatenation of the last operand, a slash, and the final pathname
component of the named file.
The following options are available:
-f Do not prompt for confirmation before overwriting the
destination
path. (The -f option overrides any previous -i or -n
options.)
-i Cause mv to write a prompt to standard error before moving
a file
that would overwrite an existing file. If the response
from the
standard input begins with the character `y' or `Y', the
move is
attempted. (The -i option overrides any previous -f or -n
options.)
-n Do not overwrite an existing file. (The -n option
overrides any
previous -f or -i options.)
-v Cause mv to be verbose, showing files after they are moved.
It is an error for either the source operand or the destination
path to
specify a directory unless both do.
--
Jacqueline Landman Gay | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
HyperActive Software | http://www.hyperactivesw.com
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