{"id":25384,"date":"2019-05-24T17:37:44","date_gmt":"2019-05-24T21:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=25384"},"modified":"2022-08-10T11:19:34","modified_gmt":"2022-08-10T15:19:34","slug":"why-does-windows-use-backslash-as-the-path-separator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/24\/why-does-windows-use-backslash-as-the-path-separator\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Does Windows Use Backslash As the Path Separator?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.os2museum.com\/wp\/why-does-windows-really-use-backslash-as-path-separator\/\">Michal Necasek<\/a> (via <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=20004738\">Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"http:\/\/www.os2museum.com\/wp\/why-does-windows-really-use-backslash-as-path-separator\/\"><p>Microsoft reportedly wanted to use the forward slash as path separator, but IBM nixed the idea because it would have created an incompatibility with DOS 1.x, which already used the forward slash as a switch character, separating command options.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Changing the slash semantics had a clear potential for destroying data, especially when running batch files written for DOS 1.1. Something like &lsquo;COPY FOO + BAR \/A&rsquo; has rather different semantics when \/A is a switch vs. when \/A is a file or directory in the disk&rsquo;s root directory.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>There have Microsoft&rsquo;s own word that the forward slash came not from CP\/M, not from IBM, but from DEC, and there&rsquo;s an explicit mention of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/TOPS-10\">TOPS-10<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michal Necasek (via Hacker News): Microsoft reportedly wanted to use the forward slash as path separator, but IBM nixed the idea because it would have created an incompatibility with DOS 1.x, which already used the forward slash as a switch character, separating command options. [&#8230;] Changing the slash semantics had a clear potential for destroying [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2019-05-24T21:37:47Z","apple_news_api_id":"62cb7076-d0f6-4418-a927-4adb453402b5","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2022-08-10T15:19:37Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AYstwdtD2RBipJ0rbRTQCtQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[295,697,37,821,71,219],"class_list":["post-25384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-history","tag-ibm","tag-microsoft","tag-ms-dos","tag-programming","tag-windows"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25384"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25385,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25384\/revisions\/25385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}