Out of Environment Space

[advatis]

Hi guys

I am trying to change vDos 2020 to 2022.

But unfortunately I can't get my Clipper program to work.

I get the error message "Out of Environment Space" and the screen stays black.

Does anyone here have an idea what this can be ?

Thanks in advance.

[Jos]

The environment space is limited to 256 characters in 2022.05.01.

Rem-out starting the Clipper program, and see with SET what variables are set. If you can miss some, SET those to blank.

Else eventually let me know, I’ll send you a vDos.exe with the environment raised to 1,024 characters.

Jos

[advatis]

Hello Jos,
thank you very much for the answer. I don't think it is the Environment Space.
I have massively shortened all entries and the SET command correctly returns
the variables. Nevertheless I have a black screen.

[Jos]

The "Out of Environment Space" is gone, but the program still doesn’t show up?

Start vDos with the log option (….\vDos.exe /log), and look in the generated vDos.log file for obvious errors like incorrect paths.

If the single executable is sufficient to reproduce the issue, eventually post your program and autoexec.txt.

Jos

[chaineskrug]

Jun 30, 2022 14:16:21 GMT 1 Jos said:

The environment space is limited to 256 characters in 2022.05.01.

Rem-out starting the Clipper program, and see with SET what variables are set. If you can miss some, SET those to blank.

Else eventually let me know, I’ll send you a vDos.exe with the environment raised to 1,024 characters.

Jos

How do you increase the environment to 1,024 characters?

[Jos]

As said, I could send you a vDos.exe with an environment size of 1,024 characters.

You cannot do that yourself. Besides using 4DOS as an alternative command line processor. But that also complicates things.

Jos

[chaineskrug]

It looks like I need quite a few SET variables from the system, if there is a way of importing them than that would be good but otherwise I will need significantly more characters. Could you please send the vDos with a larger environment size? What is the limit?

Just checked how many characters I would need to get all variables to test. 837 characters. 

[Jos]

You could use SET DOS_VAR=%%WINDOWS_VAR%%. Mind DOS environment variables are more limited in size, some 124 characters.

For whatever reason no API function to query environment variables was added to DOS.
Those programs have to do that by code of their own, and so you cannot use %%WINDOWS_VAR%% inside a program.

I’ll send you a vDos.exe by wetransfer, the limit of the environment space should be 1,024 characters.

Jos

[chaineskrug]

Is it possible for the environment to be 2048? I have no clue what variable in this environment variable list is important. and Apparently the variable character size just doubled.

[Jos]

You'll have to do with a maximum of 1,024 characters.

You could post a list of the environment variables (set>env_vars.txt).

Jos

[rikvl]

Jul 5, 2022 19:22:18 GMT 1 Jos said:

You'll have to do with a maximum of 1,024 characters.

You could post a list of the environment variables (set>env_vars.txt).

Jos

Jos

I'm having the same problem of running out of environment space. I launch vDos with a .BAT file containing the following:

set path=c:\powerc;c:\powerc\mixedit;c:\powerc\pcshell;c:\powerc\database;c:\powerc\pctrace;c:\powerc\window;c:\powerc\workarea;c:\powerc\workarea\houseinv
set pcoption=/ic:\powerc\window;c:\powerc\database
set libnames=c:\powerc\window\window*;c:\powerc\database\isam.lib;cbt.lib
set library=c:\powerc;c:\powerc\database;c:\powerc\window
set dbpath=c:\powerc\dbases\
cd c:\powerc\workarea\houseinv

According to my count there are 393 characters. So if the character limit is 1,024 characters I'm puzzled.

[Jos]

Your math is correct.

I could argue path= only works for executables, so you could probably loose some path references. Then changing “powerc” to “pc” could satisfy vDos.

Your 393 characters problem is given by the 256 character limit of vDos 2022.05.01.
The 1,024 limit is with the modified vDos.exe I sent to chaineskrug. I’ll send you a copy (by wetransfer).

Jos

[rikvl]

Thanks Jos. That's solved my problem.

[vitaliy]

Jul 8, 2022 8:51:41 GMT 1 Jos said:

Your math is correct.

I could argue path= only works for executables, so you could probably loose some path references. Then changing “powerc” to “pc” could satisfy vDos.

Your 393 characters problem is given by the 256 character limit of vDos 2022.05.01.
The 1,024 limit is with the modified vDos.exe I sent to chaineskrug. I’ll send you a copy (by wetransfer).

Jos

Hi!  I would like to get a modified vDos too.

[Jos]

Here is the link to that: www.vdos.info/files/20220301/vDos.exe

Jos