Series 300 Only

NAME

DOSIF − DOS Interchange Format description

DESCRIPTION

DOSIF (DOS Interchange Format) is the name given to the media format used by the DOS operating system.  This format is based upon that used in IBM PC and PCAT, HP Vectra, and HP 150 systems. 

The DOS utilities described in Section 1 are provided for reading and writing data to and from DOSIF volumes.  These utilities (referred to hereafter as dos∗(1) can be used to retrieve information from a DOSIF volume. 

The dos∗(1) utilities in Section 1 are the only entities within the HP-UX operating system that can interact directly with the contents of a DOSIF volume. All other HP-UX utilites and facilities can only treat a DOSIF volume as a file containing unspecified data.  Mount(1) must not be used on a DOSIF volume because the operating system cannot recognize it. 

When specifying file names for DOSIF commands, concatenate the HP-UX path name in front of the DOSIF volume and file name, separating the two with a colon (:).  For example,

/dev/fd.0:/users/ivy

specifies DOSIF file /users/ivy accessed through HP-UX device special file /dev/fd.0.

Note that this file naming convention is only suitable for use as arguments to the dos∗(1) utilities, and does not constitute a legal path name for any other use within HP-UX.  Also, the shell (sh(1)) meta characters: ∗ ? and [...] cannot be used to specify an arbitrary pattern for file name matching when using DOSIF utilities. 

If the HP-UX device name and a trailing colon are specified but no file or directory name is provided (e.g.  /dev/rfd.0:), the root (/) of the DOS file system is assumed by convention. 

A primitive form of data protection is provided by a lockfile /tmp/DOS..LCK that permits only one process and its immediate children to use the DOSIF utilities at any given time. 

SEE ALSO

doschmod(1), doscp(1), dosdf(1), dosls(1), dosmkdir(1), dosrm(1). 

WARNINGS

Dos∗ routines maintain a cache in order to reduce the number of mass storage device accesses.  When referring to several DOSIF files within a single command, be sure to refer to the device file in exactly the same way.  For example,

doscp /dev/x:alpha //dev/x:beta

is sure to create unexpected results because the DOSIF utilities treat /dev/x and //dev/x as two different devices. 

Hewlett-Packard Company  —  May 11, 2021