Re: Installing Gnat 'out of environment space'

[Bob Crispen <revbob@EIGHT-BALL.HV.BOEING.COM>]

David Shochat <shochat@ROOSEVELT.LOGICON.COM> sez:

>    Nick> I'm having trouble running out of environment space when I
>    Nick> try to run the 'setpath.bat' file with the latest release of
>    Nick> Gnat for Win95.
>
>    Nick> How do I solve this little problem?
>
>This should be an FAQ (I remember how frustrating it was the first time I ran
>into it...)
>
>Anyway, go into the Explorer and navigate to C:\Windows\Start Menu\Programs.
>Click the right mouse button on MS-DOS Prompt, and choose Properties from the
>popup. Select the memory tab and change "Initial environment" to 1024.

There is a slightly more elegant solution.  Make a copy of the MS-DOS
prompt shortcut that's in c:\Windows\Start Menu\Programs and put it in
another folder in that same tree structure and then set the properties
in the copy.  Following David's advice sets the properties for the default
MS-DOS prompt, which may not always be a good idea, especially if they
issue a fix that makes selecting "Auto" actually work.

Incidentally, if you do make a copy of the MS-DOS shortcut in another
folder (I've got a folder called Programming) then you can put a new icon
on that shortcut, set the default directory, and, most important of all,
start in a directory of your choice and use the Gnat setpath.bat file as
the initial script!

One more, uh, feature you may run into: if you've got a space in any
of your names in PATH (e.g., you've installed Netscape under Program
Files), then the PATH line that comes with the Gnat-supplied setpath.bat
will fail with a "Too many arguments" error.

This does NOT mean that your PATH is too long, which is what a newbie
to DOS might take that to mean.  Here's the offending line in
setpath.bat (or an approximation to it):

set PATH=D:\Ada\Gnat;%PATH%

The problem comes when the existing PATH on the right-hand side of that
line is expanded; DOS finds the space in the existing PATH and barfs
because now you have too many parameters on the right-hand side of the
SET statement.

Change this line in setpath.bat to:

set PATH="D:\Ada\Gnat;%PATH%"

(or whatever the right syntax is -- just add the quotes), and it works
fine.

The Gnat folks might want to consider modifying setpath.bat, since I
believe the quotes are always harmless if they aren't needed.

Sorry to be so PC-specific, but there are a lot of them out there, all
owned by potential Ada fans.

Bob Crispen
revbob@eight-ball.hv.boeing.com
crispen@hiwaay.net
Speaking for myself, not my company