The Command Tail

MS-DOS copies the command tail into the child program's PSP at offset 0080H, as described in Chapter 3. The information takes the form of a count byte, followed by a string of ASCII characters, terminated by a carriage return; the carriage return is not included in the count.

The command tail can include filenames, switches, or other parameters. From the child program's point of view, the command tail should provide the same information that would be present if the program had been run by a direct user command at the MS-DOS prompt. EXEC ignores any I/O-redirection parameters placed in the command tail; the parent program must provide for redirection of the standard devices before the EXEC call is made.