Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
commands are simply the names of utility programs (normally resident in the
DOS sub-directory). If you need to gain access to these utilities from any
directory or sub-directory, then the following lines should be included in your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file (see page 135):
SET PATH=C:\DOS
The foregoing assumes that you have created a sub-directory called DOS on
the hard disk and that this sub-directory contains the DOS utility programs. As
with the internal DOS commands, the examples given apply to the majority of
DOS versions.
Command
Function
The
APPEND
command allows the user to specify drives,
directories, and sub-directories which will be searched through
when a reference is made to a particular data file. The
APPEND
command follows the same syntax as the
PATH
command
(see page 118).
APPEND
The
ASSIGN
command allows users to redirect files between
drives.
ASSIGN
is particularly useful when a RAM disk is used to
replace a conventional disk drive.
Examples:
ASSIGN A=E
results in drive E: being searched for a file whenever a reference
is made to drive A:. The command may be subsequently
countermanded by issuing a command of the form:
ASSIGN A=A
Alternatively, all current drive assignments may be overridden
by simply using:
ASSIGN
ASSIGN A=B
followed by
ASSIGN B=A
can be used to swap the
drives over in a system which has two floppy drives. The original
drive assignment can be restored using
ASSIGN
.
ASSIGN
The
ATTRIB
command allows the user to examine and/or set the
attributes of a single file or a group of files. The
ATTRIB
command alters the file attribute byte (which appears within a
disk directory) and which determines the status of the file
(e.g. read-only).
Examples:
ATTRIB A:
\
PROCESS.DOC
displays the attribute status of copies the file PROCESS.DOC
contained in the root directory of the disk in drive A:.
ATTRIB +R A:
\
PROCESS.DOC
changes the status of the file PROCESS.DOC contained in the
root directory of the disk in drive A: so that is a read-only file.
(
continued
)
ATTRIB
