commands, however it means that if you add new files or swap floppies, the new files or floppy contents will not be recognised by xpath . You can compensate for this by doing an xpath with no arguments when you change floppies. XPATH with no arguments causes the current execution path setting to be dis- played. XPATH also scans all the new execution path directories. All exec , xrel , and shell file locations are cached in RAM, providing quicker access to executable files. The xpath directories are automatically re-read after a system reset. There is a problem if you refer to a disk using a volume name; the cache is not updated. XPATH - causes the current execution paths to be removed:
no directory searches (except for the current directory) will occur. XPATH path1 path2 ... instructs the system to seach the named directories for executable files. Note that the pathnames should refer to directories in which to search, not to files. XPATH + path1 path2 ... instructs the system to add the named directories to the execution search list. Naming disks VOLUMES The volumes command displays the name of each disk, as does a dir . Handy for keeping track of which disk is which, provided you remember to give the disk a name when formatting it or later.
Assigning and substituting pathnames ASSIGN display all current assignments ASSIGN - delete all current assignments ASSIGN path1 path2 path2 is substituted whenever path1 appears Used to replace the leading parts of a pathname. Path1 can be any convenient abbreviation. Whenever path1 appears, it will be replaced by path2, which could be some long, or inconvenient, pathname. You can define up to 20 ASSIGNs. Unlike the earlier MRD (used prior to Version 3.2c), there is no ON/OFF switch. assign /inc /f0/asmfiles/includedir ensures that from then on, when a reference is made to a file or directory whose pathname starts with /inc , the string /f0/asmfiles/includedir will be substituted.
Particularly handy when including files in C or assembler. Use it also to standardise pathnames of include files. Normally assign expands its second argument out to a full pathname, before storing it away. However, if the second argument is preceded by a \ character, then it is taken literally. For example: /f0/mdir>ASSIGN /execute ../bin Page 72 User Tutorial Manual 1616/OS Commands