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List of DOS commands

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A list of DOS commands for Microsoft's MS-DOS operating system follows. In versions 5 and later only, the user can get help by typing HELP at the shell prompt. (Before version 6, the help displayed by this command is very basic and not interactive.) In the interactive help of versions 6 and later, square brackets indicate optional parameters, while italicized items should be replaced with specific values.

In DOS version 5 or later, to get help on a dos command, at the dos prompt, type /? after the command name. For example, to get help for the xcopy command, type the following at the dos prompt:

c:\>xcopy /?

The operating system will not execute the command but instead display a help page on the command, in this case xcopy. To view this help page, see the xcopy entry on this page or click here.

In the list below, when a command can accept more than one filename, or a filename including wildcards (* and ?), it is said to accept a filespec parameter. Commands that can accept only a single filename are said to accept a filename parameter.

For most of the commands, the Unix equivalent is given. It should be noted that Unix commands typically provide ranges of functionality and flexibility that are not approached by the equivalent DOS command, so all comparisons are approximate. For example, the DOS commands copy and xcopy are said to be equivalent to the Unix cp command, but in reality cp has much greater power than both copy and xcopy combined.

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Contents

Commands

attrib

Change or view the attributes of one or more files. It defaults to displaying the attributes of all files in the current directory.
Options: 
attrib [+|-ahrs] [filespec]
Roughly equivalent to the Unix command chmod. In Linux, the command chattr also performs similar functions.

cd or chdir

Change current directory.
cd directory
Equivalent to the Unix command cd (with parameters), or pwd (without parameters). (cd .. descends a directory.)

chkdsk

Verifies a hard disk or a floppy disk for file system integrity.
Options: 
chkdsk drive [[path]filename] [link] [link]
Equivalent to the Unix command fsck

cls

Clears the screen.
cls
Equivalent to the Unix command clear.

copy

Copies files from one location to another. The destination defaults to the current directory. If multiple source files are indicated, the destination must be a directory, or an error will result.
copy filespec [destination]
Equivalent to the Unix command cp.
Files may be copied to devices (e.g. "copy file lpt1" would send the file to the printer on lpt1. "copy file con" would output to screen, which would be the same as type.

copy device

copy device filename
In this usage, data is written from the given device to the file until the end-of-file character (ASCII character 26, which may be typed as ctrl-Z) is encountered. The most commonly used device is named con, which is short for "console"; thus, copy con filename would allow the user to type directly into a file, and press ctrl-Z when finished.
In Unix, this functionality is provided by the cat command. cat > filename (with ctrl+D to finish) would be equivalent to the DOS command copy con filename.

del or erase

Deletes files.
del filename
erase filename
To delete files in Quiet mode
del /Q filename
Equivalent to the Unix command rm.

deltree

Deletes a directory along with all of the files and subdirectories that it contains. Normally, it will ask for confirmation of such a drastic action.
deltree [link] directory
The /y parameter if present tells the deltree command to carry out without first prompting for confirmation.

The deltree command is not included in recent Microsoft Windows operating systems. Deleting a non-empty directory in those versions of Windows where the command is not included, can be achieved by the use of the rmdir command as in the following example:

rmdir /s directory
In Unix, the functionality of deltree is provided by the rm command with the parameter -r (or -rf for the /y switch).

dir

Main article: Dir (DOS Command)
Displays contents of a directory.
Options : 
dir [options] [filespec]
Equivalent to the Unix command ls (the option -l is "long" list format, it works the opposite way from /w.)

echo

Prints its own arguments back out to the DOS equivalent of the standard output stream. Usually, this means directly to the screen, but the output of echo can be redirected like any other command. Often used in batch files to print text out to the user.
echo this is text Outputs 'this is text' echo. Outputs a blank line
Another important use of the echo command is to toggle echoing of commands on and off in batch files.
echo on turns on echoing of commands echo off turns off echoing of commands
Traditionally batch files begin with the @echo off statement. This says to the interpreter that echoing of commands should be off during the whole execution of the batch file thus resulting in a "tidier" output. The @ symbol declares that this particular command (echo off) should also be executed without echo. For example the following 2 batch files are equivalent:
Batch1.bat:
@echo off echo The files in your root directory: dir /b /a-d c:\
Batch2.bat:
@echo The files in your root directory: @dir /b /a-d c:\
Echo can be used to write to files directly from the console, by redirecting the output stream:
echo text > filename
Echo can also be used to append to files directly from the console, again by redirecting the output stream:
echo text >> filename
To type more than one line from the console into a file, use copy con (above).
Equivalent to the Unix command echo.

exit

Exits the current batch script or the controlling thread.
EXIT [link] [exitcode]
/B        Exit the current batch script and set ERRORLEVEL to exitcode
Without this option, the controlling thread and any intermediate
batch files are immediately exited, and the process return code
is set to exitcode.

find

A filter to find lines in the input data stream that contain or don't contain a specified string and send these to the output data stream.
Find may also be used as a pipe.
find "keyword" < inputfilename > outputfilename


Searches for a text string in a file or files.


FIND [link] [link] [link] [link] "string" [[drive:][path]filename[ ...]]



/V        Displays all lines NOT containing the specified string.
/C        Displays only the count of lines containing the string.
/N        Displays line numbers with the displayed lines.
/I        Ignores the case of characters when searching for the string.
"string"  Specifies the text string to find.
[drive:][path]filename Specifies a file or files to search.


If a pathname is not specified, FIND searches the text typed at the prompt
or piped from another command.

Equivalent to the Unix command grep. The Unix command find performs an entirely different function; see tree.

format

Delete all the files on the disk and reformat it for MS-DOS
In most cases, this should only be used on floppy drives or other removable media. This command can potentially erase everything on a computer's hard disk.
/autotest and /backup is an undocumented feature. Adding it formats the drive without a confirmation prompt.
format [options] drive
FORMAT drive: [link] [link] [link] [| /S] [link]
FORMAT drive: [link] [link] [/N:sectors] [| /S] [link]
FORMAT drive: [link] [link] [link] [link] [| /S] [link]
FORMAT drive: [link] [link] [link] [link] [| /S] [link]
/V[:label]  Specifies the volume label.
/Q          Performs a quick format.
/F:size     Specifies the size of the floppy disk to format (such
as 160, 180, 320, 360, 720, 1.2, 1.44, 2.88).
/B          Allocates space on the formatted disk for system files.
/S          Copies system files to the formatted disk.
/T:tracks   Specifies the number of tracks per disk side.
/N:sectors  Specifies the number of sectors per track.
/1          Formats a single side of a floppy disk.
/4          Formats a 5.25-inch 360K floppy disk in a high-density drive.
/8          Formats eight sectors per track.
/C          Tests clusters that are currently marked "bad."
Known as a joke among UNIX users of that time since every user on the machine could easily cause damage with just one command. Therefore, it was known in the UNIX community as "The big DOS timesaver".
Equivalent to the Unix command mkfs.

InterLnk

MS-DOS 6 and above command to network PCs using a null modem cable or LapLink cable. InterLnk is the client-side program (InterSvr is the server) which mapped the drives of the machine running InterSvr to the local machine.
No Unix equivalent.

InterSvr

MS-DOS 6 and above command used to network PCs using a null modem cable or LapLink cable. The server-side version of InterLnk, it also immobilizes the machine it's running on as it's an active app (As opposed to a TSR) which must be running for any transfer to take place.
No Unix equivalent.

label

Changes the label on a logical drive, such as a hard disk partition or a floppy disk.
label drive
No Unix equivalent, as Unix does not use drive labels.

md or mkdir

Makes a new directory. The parent of the directory specified must already exist.
md directory
Equivalent to the Unix command mkdir.

more

Pages through the output so that you can view more than one screen of text.
command | more
Equivalent to the Unix commands more and less.
More may also be used as a filter.
more < inputfilename

move

Moves or renames a file.
move filename newfilename
Equivalent to the Unix command mv.

msd

Main article: Microsoft Diagnostics
Provides detailed technical information about the computer's hardware and software.
msd
No Unix equivalent.

pcpark

Parks the hard disk(s) (stops their turning) in order to enable safe shutdown; only used on early versions.
pcpark
No Unix equivalent.

rd or rmdir

Remove a directory, which must be empty of files.
rd directory
Equivalent to the Unix command rmdir.

rem

Remark statement, normally used within a batch file. However on the command line, rem can also be used to create a zero length file by redirecting an empty remark statement to a filename.
rem > newfilename
In Unix, the # sign can be used to start a comment; the zero-length file can be achieved using various methods, such as the touch command or dd.

ren

Renames a file. Unlike the move command, this command cannot be used to rename subdirectories, or rename files across drives.
ren filename newname
A more useful function of this command is to mass rename files by the use of wildcards. For example, the following command will change the extension of all files in the current directory from htm to html:

ren *.htm *.html
In Unix, this functionality is provided by the mv command.

sort

A filter to sort lines in the input data stream and send them to the output data stream.
sort < inputfilename > outputfilename
Equivalent to the Unix command sort.

time and date

Set/display the date and time
date
time
Equivalent to the Unix command date.

tree

Shows the directory tree of the current directory
Options:
/F (Displays the names of the files in each folder.)
/A (Use ASCII instead of the extended characters.)
tree [options] [directory]
Equivalent to the Unix command find.

truename

truename filename
Outputs the entire path (full directory and filename) of a file. For example, if the working drive and directory were C:\PROGRAMS and one typed truename fish, the output would be C:\PROGRAMS\FISH.
This command was rarely, if ever, documented in DOS manuals.
This command is similar to the Unix whereis command, which, given an executable found in $PATH, would give a full path and name. The C library function realpath performs this function.

type

Display a file. The more command is frequently used in conjunction with this command, e.g. type long-text-file | more.
type filename
Equivalent to the Unix command cat.

undelete

Restores file previously deleted with del. By default all undeleted files in the working directory are restored. The options are used to change this behaviour. If the MS-DOS mirror TSR program is used, then deletion tracking files are created and can be used by undelete.
Options : 
undelete [filespec] [/list|/all][/dos|/dt]

ver

Shows the version of MS-DOS you are using.
Some versions of MS-DOS support an undocumented /r switch, which will show the revision as well as the version.
ver [link]
Equivalent to the Unix command uname. However, in Linux uname may simply refer to the version of the kernel rather than the operating system itself, which is sometimes stored in a text file in /etc/name_version, or command lsb_release -a.

xcopy

Copy entire directory trees.
xcopy directory [destination-directory]

Copies files and directory trees.


XCOPY source [destination] [| /M] [link] [link] [[link]] [link]

[link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link]
[link] [link]



source       Specifies the file(s) to copy.
destination  Specifies the location and/or name of new files.
/A           Copies files with the archive attribute set,
doesn't change the attribute.
/M           Copies files with the archive attribute set,
turns off the archive attribute.
/D:date      Copies files changed on or after the specified date.
If no date is given, copies only those files whose
source time is newer than the destination time.
/P           Prompts you before creating each destination file.
/S           Copies directories and subdirectories except empty ones.
/E           Copies directories and subdirectories, including empty ones.
Same as /S /E. May be used to modify /T.
/W           Prompts you to press a key before copying.
/C           Continues copying even if errors occur.
/I           If destination does not exist and copying more than one file,
assumes that destination must be a directory.
/Q           Does not display file names while copying.
/F           Displays full source and destination file names while copying.
/L           Displays files that would be copied.
/H           Copies hidden and system files also.
/R           Overwrites read-only files.
/T           Creates directory structure, but does not copy files. Does not
include empty directories or subdirectories.
/T /E        includes empty directories and subdirectories.
/U           Updates the files that already exist in destination.
/K           Copies attributes. Normal Xcopy will reset read-only attributes.
/Y           Overwrites existing files without prompting.
/-Y          Prompts you before overwriting existing files.
/N           Copy using the generated short names.

In Unix, this functionality is provided by the cp command.

External links

There are several guides to DOS commands available that are licenced under the GNU Free Documentation License: Wikibooks also has a guide to Microsoft Windows (as opposed to DOS) commands.

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

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