From: address@is.invalid   
      
   Herbert,   
      
   > The only answer for "why?" I know: CMD never does what it   
   > is supposed to do.   
      
   :-) It does /exactly/ what its supposed to do - which just happens to be at   
   odds with our expectation of ease-of-usage.   
      
   batch'es biggest problem is the continuous re-parsing of stuff, and (thus)   
   generally being bad at any kind of string handling (and doesn't know much   
   about numbers either).   
      
   > Therefore now we have PowerShell.   
      
   and loooong before that BASIC, and more recently VBScript.   
      
   Regards,   
   Rudy Wieser   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)