Re: cp sucks or do I not know enough?

["Larry Irwin" <larryi@ccamedical.com>]

We converted many production shell scripts to dos/windows batch scripts...
(We had to make it possible to run our medical applications under 
windows...)
It was no easy task... We still have no reasonable method to create symbolic 
links...

Things like:
GDATE=`date +%Y%m%d`

Look like:
for /f "tokens=1-4 delims=/.- " %%A in ('date /t') do (set DOW=%%A&set 
MM=%%B&set DD=%%C&set YYYY=%%D)
set GDATE=%YYYY%%MM%%DD%

Batch syntax and functionality just isn't nearly as rich and compact as 
shell, so after you become familiar with the power of shell scripting, 
you'll find that you install C:\bin, put it in your PATH and fill it full of 
things like vi.exe, tr.exe, sed.exe, today.exe, etc. that you can locate on 
the web to make batch scripting much easier.

If you use today.exe to get the same result, the batch script looks like:
for /f "tokens=1 delims= " %%A in ('today') do (set GDATE=%%A)
Still not as intuitive as VAR=`the output of the execution of this program`,
but it does the same thing.

So... as you work in shell, start building your C:\bin library. You'll be 
glad you did!

Larry Irwin
V.P. Development
CCA Medical