Command line piping in vDOS

[dominicraf]

I am just getting started with vDOS having previously run VBDOS programs using a virtual machine or NTVDMx64.

vDOS looks really cool but I am having a problem with the 'virtualised' command line. A particular issue is that it does not seem to support piping, which is supported for instance in old DOS (6.22, any way).

For instance (assuming program dossed.exe is in the path):

dir /ad|dossed.exe -n '/Directory/p'

This gives a different error, but still fails (note the spaces around the vertical stroke pipe character):

dir /ad | dossed.exe -n '/Directory/p'
Another unrelated issue is that on the command line it only seems possible to call back the immediately preceding line (with the cursor up key) and not any earlier lines, and then you can only edit it if the line does not wrap. Are there settings to fix this?

Thanks for any help.

[dominicraf]

I have now worked around this issue.

[Jos]

The vDos command line processor is basic, it indeed doesn’t support piping.

It also doesn’t support command line history (anymore) beyond the previous line. The main goal is running end-user programs, not extensive use of the command line.
Editing a previous command line is limited to the first line, simply because of simplicity.

You can however eventually use 4DOS if you are a heavy command line user.

Jos

[dominicraf]

Thanks Jos for the quick reply and explanation. Are there any disadvantages (speed?) in using 4DOS as the command line processor in vDos (I see instructions here)?

[Jos]

The major disadvantage could be that 4DOS requires some 270KB to run, some 5KB when dormant, for its resident part.
It is of course code that goes thru the emulated CPU, so inherent slower in interpreting commands. But time-consuming operations, like actually copying files, will be as fast.

Jos

[dominicraf]

Thanks! I will probably try to manage without 4DOS. Not having VBDOS under vDos is more problematic because debugging without VBDOS IDE is hard for an issue that is specific to the vDos environment. But hey it's great to have vDos working for the compiled program, thanks for all your work.