Commodore PC 40 - Page 153

Note If you have more than one external command with the
same name, MS-DOS will run only one of them, according to the
following order of precedence: _com, _exe, _bat_
Suppose, for example, that your disk includes the files format. exe
and format. bat_ If you were to type the external command .
format, MS-DOS would always run the program format. exe first_
To run the batch file format. bat, you would have to place it in
a separate directory and give a path along with
the external
command.
The following external commands are described in Chapter 3,
"MS-DOS Commands":
append find
recover
assign format
replace
attrib graftabl
restore
backup
graphics share
chkdsk
join
sort
command
keybxx subst
diskcomp
label
sys
diskcopy
mode
tree
'exe2bin more
xcopy
fdisk print
Before MS-DOS can run external commands, it must read them into
memory from
the disk. When you give an external command,
MS-DOS immediately checks your working directory to find that
command. If it isn't there, you must tell MS-DOS which directory
the external command is in_ You do this with the path command_
When you are working with more than one directory, you may
find it more convenient to put all the MS-DOS external commands
in
one directory_ Then, when it needs them, MS-DOS can quickly
find the external commands at one location.
Suppose, for example, th.at you are in a working directory nam.ed
\user\prog and that the MS-DOS external commands are in \ bin.
To find the format command, you must tell MS-DOS to choose the
\bin path, as in the following command, which tells MS-DOS to
search in your working directory and in the \ bin directory for all
commands:
path \bin
You need only specify this path once during each computer ses-
sion. Also, if you want to know what the current path is, you can
simply type
the path command by itself_ In response, MS-DOS
displays the working path on the screen_
I
About Commands 15 i
Using paths with
external commands
Using the path
command