4 ms·

Forward slash has worked just fine on Windows for a LONG time. Backslash will probably still be around in the year 3,000 for backwards compatibility though.

chris-at 11y ago
You should say it 'works sometimes'. I actually forgot where it works because - if I try to open a file `i:/foo/bar/test.txt` I get `The file name is not valid` (from Notepad) - if I try to open a folder `i:/foo/bar` I get `The folder name is not valid` - if I try to `cd /foo/bar` I get `The system cannot find the path specified.`
- anexprogrammer 11y ago
  It doesn't help that the various Windows dialogues treat '/' differently. Windows really should have just one file open dialogue, etc.
  - wlesieutre 11y ago
    I hate that reimplementing the open dialog is an acceptable practice on Windows. I have one dialog in Acrobat, another one in AutoCAD, another for AGI32, and (I think the standard one) in Chrome. Probably others that I'm forgetting. Each of these has its own special list of "favorites" on the left, so if I want to add a shortcut to a commonly used folder, I find myself doing it in 8 different places. Or in some cases I can't; Acrobat has a sidebar with large icons of Recent Places, Desktop, Libraries, Computer, and Network. If you wanted to add somewhere more useful, you're shit out of luck. Anyone know why this happened? Was there a period around Windows XP where the built in dialog was just godawful and everyone said "Fine I'll make my own" and then they never went away? Compare to OS X where any time someone rolls their own dialogs for system features (especially Open and Print), I immediately assume the developer is an asshole. And for the most part, nobody does it. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is printing from Chrome, and theirs even includes a "Print using system dialog…" button.
    - teh_klev 11y ago
      In the olden days the standard was the "Common File Dialog" [0], I think this existed on both Windows 2000 and XP. The CFD evolved over time. Then Windows Vista came along and we were introduced to the "Common Item Dialog" [1] which is now the recommended way to File Open/Save. > Acrobat has a sidebar with large icons of Recent Places, Desktop, Libraries, Computer, and Network. Possibly your version of Acrobat is either older, or Adobe haven't bothered themselves to get with the present and implement the Common Item Dialog, or if they do they're customising it...or even worse it's a subclassed franken-dialogue. But I feel and appreciate your pain. These two (fairly old) blog posts discuss the maddening situation with Windows file dialogues: http://insanecoding.blogspot.co.uk/2007/03/file-dialogs.html http://insanecoding.blogspot.co.uk/2007/03/file-dialogs.html http://insanecoding.blogspot.co.uk/2007/04/file-dialogs-take-2.html http://insanecoding.blogspot.co.uk/2007/04/file-dialogs-take... [0]: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms646960%28v=vs.85%29.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396 https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms6... [1]: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb776913(v=vs.85).aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb7...
    - Bjartr 11y ago
      Personally, I can't stand the file selection dialog that is tiny and makes you expand the file tree one step at a time to find the file you want. Anyone know why that one even exists?
      - wlesieutre 11y ago
        Oh god, I forgot about that one. If I'm remembering right that's also one of the scattered legacy bits of Windows that doesn't support DPI scaling. So not only is it a terrible UI, it's also awkwardly pixelated. Thankfully not one I run into regularly.
    - anexprogrammer 11y ago
      It's been one of my many pet hates about Windows since first having to use it regularly, around NT or 2000. Windows isn't even consistent with itself over the look of things bringing elements of previous and future versions of Windows to your desktop. To add to the sibling comments... From MSDN "Windows continues to support the old-style Open dialog box for applications that want to maintain a user-interface consistent with the old-style user-interface" No, no and thrice no. If I'm on Win 7, everything should look Win 7 consistent. Likewise if I'm on 10 it should all look 10, perhaps with necessarily reduced functionality if it's a deprecated call. If I'm running Visual Studio on 7, I don't want all my icons, and GUI to be of 10. No matter how diligently you upgrade, there is always something visually out of step. Even with only MS software. I suspect it was the very late arrival of a Windows Style Guide made a lot of developers get the habit of doing their own thing. Then they'll start faffing around with variations so you can have preview in open. Hell, might as well do our own everything. The rules didn't say you shouldn't. Mac always had a pretty tight, and extensive, Style Guide with apparently thought down to individual pixels; Windows seemed not to care, or not understand when it did care. Around XP Windows started caring more about UX, but probably far too late.
- wglb 11y ago
  It works internally always. It is commands at the command line that insist on the difference.
- thoth 11y ago
  >You should say it 'works sometimes'. 1st and 3rd examples work from PowerShell.
mrich 11y ago
There are some commands where it doesn't work, in some cases '/' is interpreted as an option prefix and the failure is obvious, for other commands failures are not so obvious (copy IIRC, cost me half an hour some time ago)
- pmontra 11y ago
  So the path forward should be: MS goes bash only in its documentation, to the point that people forgets about cmd with the exception of those that really have to deal with legacy stuff. But what about powershell, does it need \ or can it use / safely?
- sushiwarrior 11y ago
  This is the most frustrating part. cd? Fine with forward slashes! mkdir? Shits a brick! robocopy? No problem with either. xcopy? Better have backslashes. There is no consistency and sometimes, yes, the failures aren't an immediate error or will produce strange behaviour (especially if they look like flags).

chris-at 11y ago

You should say it 'works sometimes'. I actually forgot where it works because - if I try to open a file `i:/foo/bar/test.txt` I get `The file name is not valid` (from Notepad) - if I try to open a folder `i:/foo/bar` I get `The folder name is not valid` - if I try to `cd /foo/bar` I get `The system cannot find the path specified.`

anexprogrammer 11y ago
It doesn't help that the various Windows dialogues treat '/' differently. Windows really should have just one file open dialogue, etc.
- wlesieutre 11y ago
  I hate that reimplementing the open dialog is an acceptable practice on Windows. I have one dialog in Acrobat, another one in AutoCAD, another for AGI32, and (I think the standard one) in Chrome. Probably others that I'm forgetting. Each of these has its own special list of "favorites" on the left, so if I want to add a shortcut to a commonly used folder, I find myself doing it in 8 different places. Or in some cases I can't; Acrobat has a sidebar with large icons of Recent Places, Desktop, Libraries, Computer, and Network. If you wanted to add somewhere more useful, you're shit out of luck. Anyone know why this happened? Was there a period around Windows XP where the built in dialog was just godawful and everyone said "Fine I'll make my own" and then they never went away? Compare to OS X where any time someone rolls their own dialogs for system features (especially Open and Print), I immediately assume the developer is an asshole. And for the most part, nobody does it. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is printing from Chrome, and theirs even includes a "Print using system dialog…" button.
  - teh_klev 11y ago
    In the olden days the standard was the "Common File Dialog" [0], I think this existed on both Windows 2000 and XP. The CFD evolved over time. Then Windows Vista came along and we were introduced to the "Common Item Dialog" [1] which is now the recommended way to File Open/Save. > Acrobat has a sidebar with large icons of Recent Places, Desktop, Libraries, Computer, and Network. Possibly your version of Acrobat is either older, or Adobe haven't bothered themselves to get with the present and implement the Common Item Dialog, or if they do they're customising it...or even worse it's a subclassed franken-dialogue. But I feel and appreciate your pain. These two (fairly old) blog posts discuss the maddening situation with Windows file dialogues: http://insanecoding.blogspot.co.uk/2007/03/file-dialogs.html http://insanecoding.blogspot.co.uk/2007/03/file-dialogs.html http://insanecoding.blogspot.co.uk/2007/04/file-dialogs-take-2.html http://insanecoding.blogspot.co.uk/2007/04/file-dialogs-take... [0]: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms646960%28v=vs.85%29.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396 https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms6... [1]: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb776913(v=vs.85).aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb7...
  - Bjartr 11y ago
    Personally, I can't stand the file selection dialog that is tiny and makes you expand the file tree one step at a time to find the file you want. Anyone know why that one even exists?
    - wlesieutre 11y ago
      Oh god, I forgot about that one. If I'm remembering right that's also one of the scattered legacy bits of Windows that doesn't support DPI scaling. So not only is it a terrible UI, it's also awkwardly pixelated. Thankfully not one I run into regularly.
  - anexprogrammer 11y ago
    It's been one of my many pet hates about Windows since first having to use it regularly, around NT or 2000. Windows isn't even consistent with itself over the look of things bringing elements of previous and future versions of Windows to your desktop. To add to the sibling comments... From MSDN "Windows continues to support the old-style Open dialog box for applications that want to maintain a user-interface consistent with the old-style user-interface" No, no and thrice no. If I'm on Win 7, everything should look Win 7 consistent. Likewise if I'm on 10 it should all look 10, perhaps with necessarily reduced functionality if it's a deprecated call. If I'm running Visual Studio on 7, I don't want all my icons, and GUI to be of 10. No matter how diligently you upgrade, there is always something visually out of step. Even with only MS software. I suspect it was the very late arrival of a Windows Style Guide made a lot of developers get the habit of doing their own thing. Then they'll start faffing around with variations so you can have preview in open. Hell, might as well do our own everything. The rules didn't say you shouldn't. Mac always had a pretty tight, and extensive, Style Guide with apparently thought down to individual pixels; Windows seemed not to care, or not understand when it did care. Around XP Windows started caring more about UX, but probably far too late.
wglb 11y ago
It works internally always. It is commands at the command line that insist on the difference.
thoth 11y ago
>You should say it 'works sometimes'. 1st and 3rd examples work from PowerShell.

mrich 11y ago

There are some commands where it doesn't work, in some cases '/' is interpreted as an option prefix and the failure is obvious, for other commands failures are not so obvious (copy IIRC, cost me half an hour some time ago)

pmontra 11y ago
So the path forward should be: MS goes bash only in its documentation, to the point that people forgets about cmd with the exception of those that really have to deal with legacy stuff. But what about powershell, does it need \ or can it use / safely?
sushiwarrior 11y ago
This is the most frustrating part. cd? Fine with forward slashes! mkdir? Shits a brick! robocopy? No problem with either. xcopy? Better have backslashes. There is no consistency and sometimes, yes, the failures aren't an immediate error or will produce strange behaviour (especially if they look like flags).