DOS commands for Linux users

As seen in Windows XP.

Cheatsheet

Similar commands. Not exact same ones. There are differences.

Options in DOS start with / as in /a instead of -a in Linux.

Help text of DOS commands is usually obtained using /?, like --help in Linux.

Compare files

With FC command. As in 'File Compare'.

fc file1.txt file2.txt

Or with COMP command which is a bit different from FC.

Edit

Launch an editor.

edit [file]

MS-DOS editor in XP.

MS-DOS editor not available in any 64-bit Windows.

Managing directories

Create directory

mkdir [dirs]
md [dirs]

Delete directory

Remove an empty directory.

rmdir [dirs]
rd [dirs]

Or remove entire directory along with all its sub-directories and files with DELTREE:

DELTREE is considered a 'dangerous' command due to the possibility of accidental file deletion.

Navigating directories

Changing current directory

CD command.

1. Go to the parent directory

   cd ..
   

Print current directory

Run cd without any parameters.

cd

Help

–help option for DOS commands

In DOS, /? fulfills the function of --help in Linux.

cmd /?

HELP

HELP <command-name>

Command options

In DOS, options are preceded by a '/' unlike Unix where hyphens are used instead.

Change file permissions

Use ATTRIB command.

• +h: hidden
• +r: read-only
• +s: system file
• +a: archived file
• -h: not hidden
• -r: not read-only
• -s: not system file
• -a: not archived file

For example, the following command makes the file file.txt 'not hidden' and 'not read-only'.

attrib -h -r file.txt

Without any switches, ATTRIB acts something like ls -l in Linux.

Comments

Two ways:

• REM command
• ::

These work only when at the beginning of a line.

Example:

REM Hello script
:: Another comment
echo "Hello"

If we need comment after a command, we can use command concatenation character (&) like

echo "hello" & REM A comment
echo "world" & ::  Another comment

Find memory usage

MEM command.

mem

and get output like

655360 bytes total conventional memory
655360 bytes available to MS-DOS
633456 largest executable program size

1048576 bytes total contiguous extended memory
      0 bytes available contiguous extended memory
941056 bytes available XMS memory
      MS-DOS resident in High Memory Area

Pager

MORE command.

• Next line: Return
• Next page: Space
• Exit : q

PATH command

Displays search path for executable files.

Like displaying or setting $PATH in Linux.

PAUSE command

Suspends execution and by default, displays a "Press any key to continue . . ." message, till a key is pressed.

Renaming files

Two ways:

• move
• ren

Variables

Using SET command.

set var=hello
echo %var%

Environment variables

%cd%     : Like $PWD in Linux
%date%
%time%

Wildcards

Unlike Unix, DOS considers file extension quite important.

Asterisk

REM Like `ls *` in Linux
dir *.*

and

REM Like `ls *.txt` in Linux
dir *.txt

Question mark

*.sw?

would match ab.swp, 12a.swo, etc.

Date and time

Display current date and prompt for new date value: date

Just display current date: date /t

Likewise with time: time and time /t.

Shell

Piping commands

Like in Unix.

For example, the following is like cat file.txt | more in Linux:

type file.txt | more

Input/output redirection

Todo: Todo

Copy entire directory trees

Todo: XCOPY command.

Less oftenly used commands

Change title of DOS window

Change title of command prompt window with TITLE command.

Get DOS version

VER command.

Some 'equivalent' DOS commands

grep -r

dir *.txt /s /b

/s look in all sub-directories and /b keeps output concise.

References

• Help output of the commands
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_DOS_commands