The function system works fine in Hugs except on windows where DOS limitations cause the function to always return ExitSuccess. (ghc suffers from the same problem on Windows.)

Actually, that is not quite correct: ghc seems to suffer from this problem only on older Windows versions (such as Windows 98), whereas Hugs seems to have the bug also on newer Windows versions (such as XP), at least in its current binary release.. I reported the ghc/win98 problem earlier, below is what happens on Windows XP. So the bug seems even worse in Hugs than in GHC? Claus PS. why the differences in default access to standard modules? should GHC be more restrictive there? --------------------------------------------------- ___ ___ _ / _ \ /\ /\/ __(_) / /_\// /_/ / / | | GHC Interactive, version 6.0.1, for Haskell 98. / /_\\/ __ / /___| | http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ \____/\/ /_/\____/|_| Type :? for help. Loading package base ... linking ... done. Prelude> System.system "fail" >>= print 'fail' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. ExitFailure 1 Prelude> --------------------------------------------------- || || || || || || ||__ Hugs 98: Based on the Haskell 98 standard ||___|| ||__|| ||__|| __|| Copyright (c) 1994-2002 ||---|| ___|| World Wide Web: http://haskell.org/hugs || || Report bugs to: hugs-bugs@haskell.org || || Version: Nov 2002 _________________________________________ Haskell 98 mode: Restart with command line option -98 to enable extensions Reading file "C:\Program Files\Hugs98\lib\Prelude.hs": Hugs session for: C:\Program Files\Hugs98\lib\Prelude.hs Type :? for help Prelude> :a System Reading file "C:\Program Files\Hugs98\lib\System.hs": Hugs session for: C:\Program Files\Hugs98\lib\Prelude.hs C:\Program Files\Hugs98\lib\System.hs System> system "fail" >>= print 'fail' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. ExitSuccess