The Command Line

CMD.EXE displays a [c:\] prompt when it is waiting for you to enter a command. (The actual text depends on the current drive and directory as well as your PROMPT settings.) This is called the command line and the prompt is asking you to enter a command, an alias or batch file name, or the instructions necessary to begin an application program. This section explains the features that will help you while you are typing in commands, and how keystrokes are interpreted when you enter them at the command line. The keystrokes discussed here are the ones normally used by CMD.EXE. If you prefer using different keystrokes to perform these functions, you can assign new ones with key mapping directives in CMD.INI.

The command line features documented in this section are:

Command-Line Editing
Command History and Recall
Command History Window
Command Names and Parameters
Filename Completion
Automatic Directory Changes
Directory History Window
Multiple Commands
Expanding and Disabling Aliases
Command-Line Length Limits

Additional command-line features are documented under File Selection and Other Features.