dir (command)

In computing, dir (directory) is a command in various computer operating systems used for computer file and directory listing.[1] It is one of the basic commands to help navigate the file system. The command is usually implemented as an internal command in the command-line interpreter (shell). On some systems, a more graphical representation of the directory structure can be displayed using the tree command.

For other uses, see Dir (disambiguation).
dir
Developer(s)DEC, DR, Intel, Cromemco, MetaComCo, Microsoft, IBM, Datalight, ICD, Inc.
Operating systemCP/M, MP/M, ISIS-II, iRMX 86, CDOS, TRIPOS, DOS, MSX-DOS, SISNE plus, 4690 OS, PC-MOS, OS/2, Windows, Singularity, ReactOS, AROS, VMS, RT-11, RSX-11, OS/8
PlatformCross-platform
TypeCommand
LicenseCP/M, MP/M: BSD-like
MS-DOS: MIT
PC-MOS: GPL-3.0-only
ReactOS: GPL

Implementations
Screenshot showing the "Abort, Retry, Fail?" prompt on MS-DOS.

The command is available in the command-line interface (CLI) of the operating systems Digital Research CP/M,[2] MP/M,[3] Intel ISIS-II,[4] iRMX 86,[5] Cromemco CDOS,[6] MetaComCo TRIPOS,[7] DOS, IBM/Toshiba 4690 OS,[8] IBM OS/2,[9] Microsoft Windows,[10] Singularity, Datalight ROM-DOS,[11] ReactOS,[12] GNU,[13] AROS[14] and in the DCL command-line interface used on DEC VMS, RT-11 and RSX-11. It is also supplied with OS/8 as a CUSP (Commonly-Used System Program).

The dir command is supported by Tim Paterson's SCP 86-DOS.[15] On MS-DOS, the command is available in versions 1 and later.[16] It is also available in the open source MS-DOS emulator DOSBox. MS-DOS prompts "Abort, Retry, Fail?" after being commanded to list a directory with no diskette in the drive.

The numerical computing environments MATLAB and GNU Octave include a dir function with similar functionality.[17][18]

Examples
CP/M 3.0 directory listing on a Commodore 128 home computer.
Directory listing on SCP running on a robotron PC 1715.
Directory listing on CP/J 2.21 running on an Elwro 804 Junior.
Microsoft Windows Command Prompt showing a directory listing.

DOS, Windows, ReactOS

List all files and directories in the current working directory.

C:\Users>dir

List any text files and batch files (filename extension ".txt" or ".bat").

C:\Users>dir *.txt *.bat

Recursively list all files and directories in the specified directory and any subdirectories, in wide format, pausing after each screen of output. The directory name is enclosed in double-quotes, to prevent it from being interpreted is as two separate command-line options because it contains a whitespace character.

C:\Users>dir /s /w /p "C:\Users\johndoe\My Documents"

List any NTFS junction points:

<syntaxhighlight lang="doscon" class="" id="" style="background:none; border:none; color:inherit; padding: 0px 0px;" inline="1">C:\Users>dir /ash</syntaxhighlight>
<syntaxhighlight lang="output" class="" id="" style="background:none; border:none; color:inherit; padding: 0px 0px;" inline="1">Volume in drive C is OS.</syntaxhighlight>
<syntaxhighlight lang="output" class="" id="" style="background:none; border:none; color:inherit; padding: 0px 0px;" inline="1">Volume Serial Number is xxxx-xxxx</syntaxhighlight>
<syntaxhighlight lang="output" class="" id="" style="background:none; border:none; color:inherit; padding: 0px 0px;" inline="1">Directory of C:\Users</syntaxhighlight>
<syntaxhighlight lang="output" class="" id="" style="background:none; border:none; color:inherit; padding: 0px 0px;" inline="1">12/07/2019  02:30 AM    <SYMLINKD>     All Users [C:\ProgramData]</syntaxhighlight>
<syntaxhighlight lang="output" class="" id="" style="background:none; border:none; color:inherit; padding: 0px 0px;" inline="1">12/07/2019  02:30 AM    <JUNCTION>     Default User [C:\Users\Default]</syntaxhighlight>
<syntaxhighlight lang="output" class="" id="" style="background:none; border:none; color:inherit; padding: 0px 0px;" inline="1">12/07/2019  02:12 AM               174 desktop.ini</syntaxhighlight>
              <syntaxhighlight lang="output" class="" id="" style="background:none; border:none; color:inherit; padding: 0px 0px;" inline="1">1 File(s)            174 bytes</syntaxhighlight>
              <syntaxhighlight lang="output" class="" id="" style="background:none; border:none; color:inherit; padding: 0px 0px;" inline="1">2 Dir(s)  332,659,789,824 bytes free</syntaxhighlight>

Unices

dir is not a Unix command; Unix has the analogous ls command instead. The GNU operating system, however, has a dir command that "is equivalent to ls -C -b; that is, by default files are listed in columns, sorted vertically, and special characters are represented by backslash escape sequences".[19] Actually, for compatibility reasons, ls produces device-dependent output. The dir instruction, unlike ls -Cb, produces device-independent output.

See also

References
  1. Rügheimer, Hannes; Spanik, Christian (October 22, 1988). AmigaDOS quick reference. Grand Rapids, Mi : Abacus. ISBN 9781557550491 – via Internet Archive.
  2. "Operating manual" (PDF). cpm.z80.de. Retrieved 2019-10-22.
  3. Digital Research (1981-09-25). MP/M-86 Operating System - User's Guide (PDF) (1 ed.). Pacific Grove, CA, USA: Digital Research. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-01-04. Retrieved 2017-01-04.
  4. ISIS II Users Guide
  5. iRMX™86 INTRODUCTION AND OPERATOR'S REFERENCE MANUAL For Release 6
  6. CDOS USER'S MANUAL
  7. "Introduction to Tripos" (PDF). Retrieved 2019-10-22.
  9. "JaTomes Help - OS/2 Commands". www.jatomes.com. Archived from the original on 2019-04-14. Retrieved 2019-07-20.
  10. "MS-DOS and Windows command line dir command". www.computerhope.com.
  11. "Datalight ROM-DOS User's Guide" (PDF). www.datalight.com.
  12. "GitHub - reactos/reactos: A free Windows-compatible Operating System". October 22, 2019 – via GitHub.
  13. "GNU Coreutils Manual". Free Software Foundation.
  14. "AROS Research Operating System". aros.sourceforge.net.
  15. 86-DOS - Disk Operating System for the 8086 - User's Manual (PDF). Version 0.3 (Preliminary ed.). Seattle, Washington, USA: Seattle Computer Products, Inc. 1980. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-07-14. Retrieved 2019-07-14. (59 pages)
  16. Wolverton, Van (2003). Running MS-DOS Version 6.22 (20th Anniversary Edition), 6th Revised edition. Microsoft Press. ISBN 0-7356-1812-7.
  17. "List folder contents - MATLAB dir". www.mathworks.com.
  18. "Function Reference: dir". octave.sourceforge.io.
  19. dir invocation (GNU coreutils) at www.gnu.org

Further reading
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Guide to Windows Commands
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.