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 Help

Command-Line Length Limits

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