Commodore PC 20 - Page 179

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MS-DOS Commands 41
The copy command also allows you to append files. To do this Appending files
you simply list any
number of files as options to copy, each
separated by a plus sign ( + ), then specify a target file to send the
combined files to; for example:
copy intro.rpt + body.rpt + b:sum.rpt report
This command combines files named intro.rpt, bOdy.rpt, and
sum. rpt (on drive B), and places them in a file called report on
the default drive. If you leave out the target file, MS· DOS combines
the files into the first specified file.
You
can also combine several files into one by using wildcards;
for example:
copy *.txt combin.doc
This command takes all files with an extension of. txt and com-
bines
them into one file named combin.doc.
In the folloWing example, each file that matches *. txt is combined
with its corresponding . ref file. The result is a file with the same
filename
but with the extension .doc. Thus, filel.txt is combined
with filel.ref to formfilel.doc, xyztxt with xyzrefto form
xyzdoc, and so on:
copy *.txt + *.ref *.doc
The following copy command combines all files matching *. txt
and all files matching *. ref into one file named combin. doc:
copy *.txt + *.ref combin.doc
Warning Do not try to append files if one of the source file·
names has the same extension as the target. For example, if
the
file all txt already exists, the following command is an error:
copy *.txt all.txt
MS· DOS would not detect the error until it tried to append all. txt.
But at that point, copy might have already destroyed the all txt
file.