Chapter 2 / Organization
Of
Infornwtion
The
Root
Directory
Originally your MS-DOS
system
disk
has
only one directory,
the
root directory, which contains
all
external
command files.
This
directory is
the
root from which
the
rest
of
the
disk's file
system
grows. The
shorthand
notation
for
a root directory is a backward
slash
(\).
(Type 7 on
the
numeric keypad
with
the
lJ'lliMi@{)
key
off.)
In
the
sample disk
diagram
on
the
previous page,
three
directo-
ries (USER, PAYROLL,
and
ADS) have
been
created
directly
in
the
root directory. (This root directory also contains
the
For-
mat.com, Find.exe,
and
Diskcopy.com files.)
Further,
the
USER
and
PAYROLL directories each
contain
subdirectories (MIKE,
DEPTl,
and
DEPT2).
Finally,
the
MIKE
subdirectory contains a
MEMOS subdirectory. All
but
one of
the
directories on
the
sam-
ple disk
contain
files.
Filenames
Each
file
has
a
name
that
can
be a
maximum
of
eight
charac-
ters
long.
You
can
use
letters,
numbers
and
some
symbols.
Allowable
characters
are:
• Uppercase letters: (A-Z)
• Lowercase letters: (a-z)
• Decimal digits: (0-9)
• Symbols:
$ & #
o/t:.
' ( ) -
((L
' { } , !
Do
not include more
than
eight
characters
in
a filename. MS-
DOS
truncates
the
filename to
the
first
eight
characters. For
example, MS-DOS
truncates
both Accountsl
and
Accounts2 to
accounts. Because two files
(that
are
in
the
same directory) can-
not have
the
same
name,
MS-DOS overwrites
and
destroys
the
old
file.
Extensions
You
can
use
an
extension to provide additional information on a
file. Always precede extensions
with
a period ( .
);
they
can
be a
maximum
of
three
characters
long.
Do
not include more
than
three
characters.
If
you
do,
MS-DOS
truncates
the
extension to
the
first
three
characters.
6
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