How the COPY command works -- 1999/05/10 ska

There are several curiosities about the COPY command:

===
Example: COPY a? + b? c?
Files in current directory: a1, a2, a3, ba, bb, bc

MS COMMAND:
+ Matches all files according the first parameter (a?).
+ The other parameters (b? and c?) are matched against the found
entry, meaning any wildcard is expanded with the text of the first
paramter.
E.g. Three files are copied:
COPY a1 + b1 c1
COPY a2 + b2 c2
COPY a3 + b3 c3
Regardless if the other parameters would match other or more files,
e.g. because b1 does not exist, an error occures.

4dos:
+ Matches all pattern against the file system strictly from left to
the right and concats them. The destination is matched against the
first parameter.
E.g. One file is copied:
COPY a1 + a2 + a3 + ba + bb + bc c1
However, the order is unspecified, because DOS does not literally
sort the entries as Unix does. (Maybe 4dos does, but I don't know.)

===

Example: COPY a? + b? cc?

Files in current directory: a1, a2, a3, ba, bb, bc

4dos:
+ As above, but the files 'cc' is created.

MS COMMAND:
+ Matches as above, but:
COPY a1 + b1 cc
COPY a2 + b2 cc
COPY a3 + b3 cc
That means if b[1-3] would exist, COPY would overwrite CC each time.

===

Example: COPY /a a + /b b /a c d /b

MS COMMAND and 4dos:

+ The first '/a' and the last '/b' are ignored.
+ The switches are valid for all destination file specs right of the
option and one spec left of it.
+ The option right of the destination spec is scanned before all
other options are scanned.

===

+ COPY will detect if it is copying a file to itself, even recursively, e.g.:

 COPY *.c + *.1 *.1
However, COPY uses the TRUENAME DOS API function, which can fail.
+ COPY mimicks the MS COMMAND behaviour to expand wildcards.
+ COPY checks before overwriting the output file, if it already exists
with a read-only open call.
+ COPY opens devices (source files only) as ASCII by default, if no switch
was specified. Otherwise files are opened in BINARY mode.
An ^Z is appended only, if the /A switch was specified.
+ /-A is not the same as /B, but /A disables /B (and visa verce)
+ "COPY a+b a" is the same as: "COPY a+b ." and "COPY a+b", the latter
one is a short form of "COPY a+b ."