COHERENT manpages
This page displays the COHERENT manpage for doscp [Copy files to/from an MS-DOS file system].
List of available manpages
Index
doscp -- Command Copy files to/from an MS-DOS file system doscp [-abkmrv] src dest doscp copies files between MS-DOS and COHERENT file systems. The MS-DOS file system can reside either on a floppy disk, or on an MS-DOS partition of a hard disk. src names the file being copied and the file system where it resides; dest names the file system and directory into which the file is copied. The operating system that owns the src file is implied by the name of the file system on which it resides. An MS-DOS file system must be named using the device that holds it, such as floppy-disk drive /dev/fha0 or hard-disk partition /dev/at0a. You can also build a file of aliases so that you can access the drives as a, b, etc. For details, see the section entitled Configuring the dos Commands, below. doscp converts a file's name from one operating system's conventions to the other's. An MS-DOS file argument may be specified in lower or upper case, using `/' as the path-name separator. When transferring files from MS-DOS to COHERENT, doscp converts an MS-DOS file name to a COHERENT file name in lower case only. If the MS-DOS file name contains no extension, the COHERENT file name contains no `.'. When transferring files from COHERENT to MS-DOS, doscp converts all alphabetic characters in a COHERENT file name to upper case; if a period `.' appears at the beginning or end of a file name, doscp converts it to `_'. doscp truncates the portion of the file name to the left of the `.' to a maximum of eight characters and portion to the right of the `.' to a maximum of three characters. doscp recognizes the following options: a Perform ASCII newline conversion on file transfer. When moving files from COHERENT to MS-DOS, this option converts each COHERENT newline character `\n' (ASCII LF) to an MS-DOS end-of-line (ASCII CR and LF). When moving files from MS-DOS to COHERENT, it does the opposite. By default, doscp performs ASCII conversion on files that have an ASCII extention. See Setup, below. b Do not perform any newline conversion on file transfers. k Keep: give the copied file the same time stamp as its original. By default, doscp gives copied files the current time. m Same as a, described above r Same as b, described above. v Verbose. Provide additional information about each action performed. Configuring the dos Commands The dos family commands read the file /etc/default/msdos before they begin to interpret arguments. By modifying this file, you can establish defaults that let COHERENT's dos commands resemble their counterparts under MS-DOS. You can set up two classes of defaults: device defaults and file defaults. A device default lets you declare an alias for a device that holds an MS- DOS file system. This device can be a floppy-disk drive, a partition on a hard disk, or an extended partition on a hard disk. The alias must consist of one or two letters. No letter can serve as an alias for more than one device. For example, the following declaration: c=/dev/at0a specifies that the hard-disk partition accessed via device /dev/at0a is a ``Primary MS-DOS'' partition, and that its alias is c. Hereafter, the dos commands will interpret c as being equivalent to /dev/at0a. The declaration d=/dev/at0b;1 specifies the first ``Extended MS-DOS'' partition on the partition accessed via device /dev/at0b. Bumping the number from 1 to 2 would specify the second extended MS-DOS partition within partition /dev/at0b, as in: e=/dev/at0b;2 Notice how the device names (c, d, and e) can correspond to the same drive names as under MS-DOS, whether or not they are primary or extended partitions. File declarations, on the other hand, simply declare that all files with a given suffix are text files and should always have their newline characters converted from COHERENT to MS-DOS format (or vice versa). For example, placing the line .c in /etc/default/msdos tells all of the dos commands that all files with the suffix .c are text files and should have their newline characters converted by default. You can have any number of file defaults in /etc/default/msdos. Examples The first example copies all C source files from floppy drive /dev/fva1 to correspondingly named files in the current COHERENT directory, preserves the time stamp, and performs newline conversion upon them: doscp -akv /dev/fva1:source/\*.c . Note that you must quote wildcard characters with a backslash to keep the shell from interpreting them. Also note that /dev/fva1 is a high-density, 3.5-inch floppy disk in floppy-disk drive 1. So, if your default file contained the entry b=/dev/fva1 .c you could also have typed: doscp -kv b:source/\*.c . The next example copies a file from an MS-DOS partition on your hard disk to a COHERENT file system. Suppose that C is the primary MS-DOS partition on your first hard drive. The following command copies file C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT to /tmp/autoexec.bat in your COHERENT partition: doscp /dev/at0a:autoexec.bat /tmp If your /etc/default file contains the entry c=/dev/at0a then you can also type: doscp c:autoexec.bat /tmp Files /etc/default/msdos -- Setup file See Also commands, cp, dos Notes For a discussion of the error message Probably not a DOS disk see the notes to the Lexicon entry for doscp. doscp does not check for unusual characters in a COHERENT file name or for file names that differ from other file names only in case. Beware of using doscp to create impossible files, e.g., com1. Such files create serious problems; for example, if you try to TYPE or otherwise perform MS-DOS operations on com1, you will attack the MS-DOS device driver instead of the file. Be sure to rename all such files when you copy them from a COHERENT to an MS-DOS file system. doscp does not understand compressed MS-DOS file systems created by programs such as Stacker or MS-DOS 6.0 dblspace. If you are running MS-DOS with file compression, you must copy files to an uncompressed file system (for example, to an uncompressed floppy disk or to the uncompressed host for a compressed file system) to make them accessible to the doscp.