Hi! Richard,   
      
   In a message to Ben Ritchey you wrote:   
      
    RW> On Mon 2039-Apr-04 02:49, BEN RITCHEY (1:393/68) wrote to RICHARD   
    RW> WEBB:   
      
    | RW>> if exist NODELIST.%BASEXTEN% goto yes   
      
    BR>> Maybe the leading zero is being truncated? or the BASEXTEN   
    BR>> variable already has a leading dot? Looks fine otherwise    
    BR>> {shrug}   
      
    RW> NOpe, just won't let you look at file.ext and look at .ext   
    RW> when indicated by an env var.  Noticed this a couple times   
    RW> over the years and found some sorta kludgy workarounds to   
    RW> it, but thought I might be missing something.   
      
   About the only thing you're missing is _not_ running MS-DOS 7.x-something.    
   :)  You really need to pick up an old copy of Win95 or Win98; I'm sure if you   
   then just delete or rename Win.Com then the GUI just cannot start.  You'd   
   probably get the side-benefit of having a NetBIOS client with access to a   
   network (I used to do similar but using a different method, years ago).  In   
   any case, DOS 7.xx even allows for line-by-line evaluation of batch statements   
   including percent variables at a command-line; you'd be limited somewhat by   
   not having the GUI to cut & paste from however.   
      
   In separating the elements of a filename I use Horst's NSET, like this...   
      
   -----8<-----C-U-T--H-E-R-E----->8-----   
     :: What's the name of the newest net segment file, then?   
     DIR /O-D/B/S %DOWNLOAD%\%SEG_BASE%.*|NSET /L1 SEGMFILE=$0   
     :: What's the net segment's filename extension?   
     DIR %SEGMFILE% /B|NSET /S. SEGM_NUM=$2   
      
     :: Now stick it where MakeNL can pick it up from...   
     LOGECHO + $D-$N-$C$Y $h:$m:$s  Moving %SEG_BASE%.%SEGM_NUM% to the updates   
   dir!  >>%UTILSLOG%   
     MOVE /Y %DOWNLOAD%\%SEG_BASE%.%SEGM_NUM% %WORK_DIR%\updates   
   -----8<-----C-U-T--H-E-R-E----->8-----   
      
   Although it's called every day that one exectutes a minimum of once a week.    
   It looks for net segment submissions from NCs within my region (#54).   
      
   Yesterday I ran a test with my alias file (FREQ list) generator batch in a   
   MS-DOS 6.22 VirtualBox using a virtual 16meg HDD for data, which uses NSET and   
   a similar technique for splitting-out the bits of filenames, and it ran though   
   the lot in near record time: 40 seconds.  It surprised the pants off me.  ;-)   
      
   Maybe if you do an ECHO or three instead of the GOTOs you might actually see   
   what's going on?  Also, perhaps try using NSET instead of that other   
   util.[shrug]   
      
   Cheers,   
   Paul.   
      
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