💾 Archived View for zaibatsu.circumlunar.space › ~visiblink › phlog › 20210812 captured on 2022-01-08 at 13:43:31.
⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-03)
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edlinfan[1], whose alias alone should give you a sense of his history with DOS[2], wrote me with an explanation of the syntactical differences between the GOTO and CALL commands in batch files[3]. Apparently, CALL was a late addition to DOS commands (at least post-dating DOS 3.3). edlinfan explained that the proper syntax for GOTO has never required a colon. The weird thing is that with a few fantastically aggravating exceptions, GOTO was working *with* the colons in place, which is why the rare errors it produced were so hard to figure out. He also offered an explanation for CALL's colon requirement: you can CALL a subroutine saved in a separate file. If you use the colon, it is clear that you are calling a label. If there's no colon, it's clear that a file is being called. That distinction isn't necessary in the case of GOTO, because you can't GOTO another file. So thanks edlinfan! I think the mystery of GOTO, CALL, and the colon is satisfactorily resolved. [1] gopher://edlinfan.duckdns.org:7000/1 [2] gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Edlin [3] gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space/0/~visiblink/phlog/20210811