bzr.bat splaps all win98 users immediately in the face

[Robert J. Cristel]

John Arbash Meinel wrote:
> James Blackwell wrote:
> 
>>On Mon, Feb 27, 2006 at 03:08:38PM -0500, Robert J. Cristel wrote:
>>
>>>C:\Python24\Scripts>type bzr.bat
>>>@C:\Python24\python.exe C:\Python24\Scripts\bzr %*
>>>
>>>C:\Python24\Scripts>bzr.bat
>>>bzr: ERROR: unknown command '*'
>>>
>>>C:\Python24\Scripts>
>>>
>>>C:\Python24\Scripts>
>>>
>>>Why?
>>>
>>>>Windows NT 4 introduced a set of new features for command line parameters:
>>>>%* 	  	will return all command line parameters following %0
>>
>>
>>I know that Windows 2000 has it. I'm unable to verify that NT4 has it. Bzr
>>is telling you though that it got "*" for an argument, which implies to me
>>that NT 4 doesn't have the feature. I suggest that you test with this
>>standalone batch script
>>
>>test.bat:
>>  echo I got:%*
>>
>>C..> test.bat hello world
>>
>>The results may be illuminating.  By the way, newer versions of bzr have
>>command aliases which may help you out of the problem that you're in.
>>
>>Regards,
>>James
>>
> 
> 
> Actually, the problem is that he is on Windows 98, which doesn't have
> anything from the NT line. So $* is illegal in win98.
> 
> Now officially, we don't support Win9x platforms. I realize we shouldn't
> be overly hostile towards it, though.
> 
> All he is really asking is that we change our default .bat file to be:
> 
> "c:\Path\To\python.exe" "C:\Path\To\bzr" $1 $2 $3 $4 $5 $6 $7 $8 $9
> 
> (I don't believe that the Win9x batch processor can handle more than 9
> arguments).
> 
> It is a small change, and if it works for him, then we might as well do it.
> 
> That said, if we run into any other major problems (like the fact that
> Win9x support for unicode is very poor, and bzr uses unicode
> extensively), I don't expect we will do a lot of work to make bzr run on
> Win98.
> 
> Can you let us know if changing the batch file makes bzr work for you?
> Otherwise there isn't much point in adding the fix, as it then limits
> other windows people to only 9 arguments. (Which is probably sufficient
> in the common case, but still a limitation).
> 
> Oh, and probably it needs to be:
> 
> "$1" "$2" "$3"
> 
> Can you confirm that as well? I know my colleague tried to do:
> bzr commit -m 'some text'
> 
> But it turns out that the Windows XP shell doesn't treat single quotes
> as special.
> 
> (Which brings up another point, that the message 'No changes to commit'
> hides the problem, and probably when a file spec is given we should give
> 'No changes to "foo" to commit')
> 
> John
> =:->
> 
Unicode went into the Windows NT, 2000, XP branch only.
For Win9x, I was hoping that you'd offer some file inclusions as XML (which is of course Unicode 
based) does:

<!ENTITY % ISOnum
	PUBLIC "ISO 8879:1986//ENTITIES Numeric and Special Graphic//EN
	SYSTEM "isonum.ent">

%ISOnum;