Declined Enhanced @FILE for COPY, DESCRIBE, MOVE, RENAME, SYNC, TOUCH /R

[Steve Fabian]

Unlike other commands which use file lists, the commands COPY, DESCRIBE,
MOVE, RENAME, SYNC, TOUCH /R deal with parameter pairs. For all but DESCRIBE
both parameters are files; for DESCRIBE the second parameter is a
description. While it is relatively easy to use a FOR or DO loop to process
parameter pairs from a file by these commands, considerably more parsing is
involved than would be used if the commands had a new option, specifying
that the list file contains parameter pairs instead of individual
parameters. The /I switch is only used currently with a (double) quoted
string, thus it could be available to select this option, possibly in the
enhanced form /I2.

BTW, /I1 could be added to the parser to force using an indirect file thus:
attrib /i1 @xxx.lst
where @xxx.lst is a file listing target files, even if a file named xxx.lst
also exists in the CWD, instead of the present interpretation of "attrib
@xxx.lst" - the file @xxx.lst is the command's target.

Both the /I1 and /I2 options would be new syntax, not now legal, preserving
100% backward compatibility. There would be no conflict with CMD syntax,
either.
--
Steve