Article ID: 63071
Article Last Modified on 5/12/2003
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft MS-DOS 4.01 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 5.0 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 5.0a
- Microsoft MS-DOS 6.0 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 6.2 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 6.21 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 6.22 Standard Edition
This article was previously published under Q63071
SUMMARY
MS-DOS recognizes only the first eight characters of a batch file label; subsequent characters are ignored.
NOTE: This eight-character limitation also applies to the %config% variable passed to the AUTOEXEC.BAT file in MS-DOS versions 6.0 or later when you use multi-boot configurations.
For example, the labels LATESTCHANGE and LATESTCHANGES are identical to MS- DOS. The line "GOTO LATESTCHANGE" (without the quotation marks) transfers to the first label in the file that has same first eight characters as LATESTCHANGE.
MORE INFORMATION
The following examples illustrate this limitation.
Example 1
The following example
goto latestch
- latestchanges
echo two
- latestch
echo three
displays the following
two
three
rather than displaying the following:
three
Example 2
The following example
- latestch
echo zero
- latestchanges
echo one
goto latestchanges
displays the following until CTRL+C is pressed, terminating the batch file:
zero
one
zero
one
zero
one
etc.
Additional query words: 6.22 4.01 5.00 5.00a 6.00 6.20 multiboot
Keywords: KB63071
