Microsoft KB Archive/34305

INFO: Full Paths Need Double Backslashes in C Article ID: Q34305 The information in this article applies to: Microsoft C for MS-DOS, versions 5.1, 6.0, 6.0a, 6.0ax Microsoft C/C++ for MS-DOS, version 7.0 Microsoft Visual C++ for Windows, versions 1.0 1.5 Microsoft Visual C++ 32-bit Edition, versions 1.0, 2.0, 4.0, 5.0 SUMMARY In C, the backslash character (\) has a special meaning to treat the next character as a literal value or to create an escape sequence, such as the end-of-line indicator (\n). Therefore, you must use two sequential backslashes to separate the directory name from the file name in a path specification. For example, consider an attempt to open a file with the following code: stream = fopen( "c:\c\source\test.c", "r" ); This code fails because the fopen() function receives "C:CSOURCETEST.C" as its first argument. The function attempts to open a file in the current directory rather than opening the TEST.C file in the C:\C\SOURCE directory. The following code example creates the desired behavior: stream = fopen( "c:\\c\\source\\test.c", "r" ); MORE INFORMATION The following C run-time library routines can accept a fully qualified path as an argument: *_dos_creat chmod execvpe sopen splitpath *_dos_creatnew creat fopen spawnl stat *_dos_findfirst execl freopen spawnle system *_dos_getfileattr execle mkdir spawnlp tempnam *_dos_open execlp open spawnlpe utime *_dos_setfileattr execlpe putenv spawnv _searchenv execv remove spawnve access execve rename spawnvp chdir execvp rmdir spawnvpe * indicates the function is available only with 16-bit implemetations. Keywords  : kbLangC kbVC Version  : MS-DOS:5.1,6.0,6.00a,6.00ax,7.0; WINDOWS:1.0,1.5; WINDOWS NT:1.0,2.0,4.0,5.0 Platform  : MS-DOS NT WINDOWS Issue type  : kbinfo

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