Damn DOS

[avram]

Can anyone explain this to me?

N:\fake\path\here>dir *bur*
 Volume in drive N is fakevolumename
 Volume Serial Number is 12345678

 Directory of [path deleted]

05/18/2004  02:08p              30,666 TX030_BUR.jpg
04/14/2004  12:44p              36,537 SO129_ECR.jpg
05/18/2004  02:08p              28,059 TX032_BUR.jpg
05/07/2004  02:02p              25,932 FT098_BUR.jpg
05/18/2004  02:08p              28,587 TX031_BUR.jpg
05/13/2004  12:20p              30,084 FT097_BUR.jpg
05/07/2004  02:02p              25,584 FT099_BUR.jpg
               7 File(s)        205,449 bytes
               0 Dir(s)  36,263,952,384 bytes free

Comments

[stormsweeper.livejournal.com]

Which version of Windows/DOS? I created dummy files with the filenames above and can't replicate:

C:\backup\drivers\test>dir *bur*
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is Dooby-Doo

 Directory of C:\backup\drivers\test

05/18/2004  02:34 PM                 5 FT097_BUR.jpg
05/18/2004  02:34 PM                 5 FT098_BUR.jpg
05/18/2004  02:35 PM                 5 FT099_BUR.jpg
05/18/2004  02:33 PM                 5 TX030_BUR.jpg
05/18/2004  02:34 PM                 5 TX031_BUR.jpg
05/18/2004  02:34 PM                 5 TX032_BUR.jpg
               6 File(s)             30 bytes
               0 Dir(s)  25,376,096,256 bytes free

[stormsweeper.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, that's on a WinXP system, latest patches.

[avram]

Win2K Pro. The line that comes up when I launch the Command Prompt app says "Microsoft Windows 2000 [Version 5.00.2195]".

[solarbird]

That's neat!

Um. Hm.

I want to say it has something to do with long vs. short filenames. But that's only valid on FAT drives. Is this formatted FAT or NTFS?

[avram]

It's NTFS.

[solarbird]

By the way, I asked around? Nothin'. Nobody knows. Congrats on that! ^_^

[spacecrab.livejournal.com]

If it isn't a hoax, you might try typing "SET DIRCMD=" command to reset that environment variable. (It's possible to rig the directory listing to show whatever you want by issuing a command like SET DIRCMD='DIR C:\SO129_ECR.jpg') You may have to enter "SET DIRCMD=" more than once if more than one variable was previously established. When they're all cleared, type "SET DIRCMD" without the equal sign, and it should say "Environment variable not defined"

Also, the "O" in the highlighted file looks a bit different than the 0s in the rest of the files indicating that it may be alphabetical instead of numeric; although I don't see why that would cause it to show up in the file listing you requested. (And this may just be my eyesight.)

The display you show is all uppercase, too, which suggests that the C-prompt is coming from a copy of COMMAND.COM rather than CMD.EXE, which is the default for Windows 2000/XP. (Windows 2000 and XP each have a copy of the old COMMAND.COM stashed away, but you usually have to load it manually to use it for a command prompt sesson.)

[spacecrab.livejournal.com]

Just checked and the Windows 2000 version of COMMAND.COM doesn't default to an all-cap display the way the Windows 98 one does, so that's irrelevant.

One other [bad] explanation would be that there's a problem with the hard drive file system or the drive cable. You can run CHKDSK /F to schedule a disk check on the next boot, which would reduce the likelihood of file system corruption. Is the SO129_ECR.jpg file really in the directory? Can you copy it somewhere else, delete it in the directory, then recopy it to the directory and reproduce the same odd file listing?

[avram]

This problem isn’t actually causing me any difficulty at work, so I don’t know how much effort I want to take away from what I’m actually supposed to be doing. Still, that glitch could cause me trouble in the future, and it might (as you say) be a symptom of something worse, so if it’s still doing it tomorrow, I’ll bring it to our sysadmin’s attention.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

Related to what's above, iirc, COMMAND.COM has an 8.3 name and cmd.exe has long names. Wht you've got isn't of the form that Windows automatically translates long names to, when making an 8.3 name for a longly named file. But to be sure, I'd open a cmd.exe session and see what's in that directory. If you don't see the same file name, then there's probably an additonal file that has your search string in it and has the name you've seen as it's short name.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

What's the actual problem?

[avram]

"dir *bur*" means list every file with "bur" in its name. SO129_ECR.jpg doesn't have "bur" in its name, but got listed. That shouldn't oughta happen.

What's to explain?

[macabee.livejournal.com]

What do you need to know? The listing of the directory Bur contains those JPEG files. Stupid naming scheme tho, not very descriptive...

Feel free to ask more specific questions, consider my brain yours for the squeezing...

Doh! I am a dumbfuck!

[macabee.livejournal.com]

DUH! Avram, DOS is non-Unixlike in that it will list ALL files if you have a leading splat (*) as the wildcard. It looks no further than that before the extension.

Well, I am really wrong, now...

[macabee.livejournal.com]

Hmmm checked on it and I must be on moron pills today. Apparently, somewhere between DOS and WIN2K they did improve that DIR command. I retract all previous comments and answer: "F-Ked if I know!"