Mail Archives: opendos/1997/11/26/22:18:32
> May I vent a little about the DIR command? It's annoyed me since DR DOS 6.0
> that DIR is absolutely incapable of displaying files and subdirectories with
> the 'hidden' bit set.
(Rest of rant deleted)
This is an annoyance point with me as well. Many times I have tried
to show a directory of hidden files, or of directories only, etc, and
usually not only can I not get the internal DIR command to do what I
want, I usually first try to enter an MS-DOS sytle command such as
DIR /AH or DIR /AD.
I have another complaint about the DIR command; it doesn't have any
sort function. My preference is to have the DIR command display
files sorted with directories first, then sorted by extension and
then by filename. DIR doesn't offer any way to sort files, and the
output (and the command syntax, for that matter) od the XDIR command
is very awkward.
My solution thus far is to use a substitute directory program that
I've written in Pascal when I need to sort the directory, display
attributes (or directories), or search subdirectories for files.
However, I would prefer to see these essential (IMHO) features
in the internal DIR command.
If anyone else is interested in my DIR substitute program (called D),
let me know, and I'll throw together some docs, and make it available
on my web page. I wrote it when I was working with a DOS 3.0 machine
at school, where the DIR command was even less functional than
OpenDOS's DIR command. D is actually more powerful than the MS-DOS
DIR command, as it supports more features than the DOS 5.0 DIR
command. It will display directories in 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 columns,
optionally supresses display of the . and .. directories, optionally
shows attributes, optionally shows commas in the file sizes,
optionally supress display of filenames (show summary only),
optionally supress display of the summary, and can display several
wildcard filespecs at once.
---
Nathan Roberts
http://home.pacbell.net/nathanr
Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
That way, when you do criticize him,
you'll be a mile away and have his shoes.
- Raw text -