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DOS Commands

• Below is a short list of DOS commands to be used in a Command Prompt Window.
   
• DOS means Disk Operating System.
   
• The terms folder and directory mean the same thing.
   
• Instead of a single filename, a filename with the wildcard character * can be entered. For example, *.txt matches all files with a .txt extension.
   
• The symbol .. means the parent of the current directory.
   

DOS Command	Meaning
cd dirname	Change to new directory
cls	Clear screen
copy filename1 filename2	Copy file
del filename	Delete file
dir	Show all files in current directory
echo	Echo a string to the screen
exit	Close Command Prompt Window
help	List information about DOS commands
mkdir dirname	Make new directory
rename filename1 filename2	Rename file
rmdir dirname	Remove directory
type filename	Type contents of file at screen


 
• The symbol > redirects screen output to a textfile.
  

  dir > dir.txt
  type dir.txt
  echo This is a test string > test.txt
  type test.txt
  

• The symbol >> appends screen output to an existing textfile.
  

  dir > out.txt
  echo This is a test string >> out.txt
  type out.txt
  

  
  
• An alternative to typing DOS comments in the Command Prompt Window is to create a .bat file that contains DOS comments. The commands in the .bat file are then executed by simply typing the name of the batch file.
   
• Example:   create a folder named test-batch-file. Place these files in the folder:
   
  
  a.txt   b.txt   c.txt   test.bat
  
  You may need to rename the file test-bat.txt to test.bat. Then navigate to test-batch-file and run the batch file test.bat by typing its name.