At 10:08 PM 6/16/02 +1200, Ian Porter wrote:
>Hey Don, I appreciate that info about the DIR command.  I'm always doing DOS
>directory searches, and it's a pain in the butt to keep typing in the /on /p
>bit.

Ian,

I'm no expert at DOS but would like to share some things I've learned in
case they are useful.

1.  what is available in DOS depends on which version you are running; you
can always get a free upgrade to the latest from MS

2.  following any command with "/?" will show you the information available
on how the command works and its options

3.  the DOS you get when you use the MS-DOS shortcut on Windows - or
'command' from start>run is not the same DOS you get when you
reboot>F8>option 6

4.  you can do

dir > myfiles

and a file called myfiles will be created on your current directory having
the entire output of your dir command

another way

dir |sort |more

will pipe the dir cmd output through the sort command, then pipe that
through the more command so that your output will be sorted by name, and
then presented one screen at a time.

5.  there are lots of ways to do things in DOS, but you already knew that :)
         I highly recommend the newsgroup
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&group=comp.os.msdos.misc

         the ingenuity of these folks is unbelievable. work with msdos just
a little and you can see how unfeatured it is. the people on this group
have developed amazing ways to make things work in spite of this. i think a
group of people from this list could find a way to build a boat from a slab
of concrete if they had to.

>Does that old grey matter remember if there's a 'FIND' facility in DOS?

find /?

hth,
Marty

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