del / erase | |
---|---|
![]() The ReactOS del command | |
Developer(s) | DEC, Microware, Microsoft, IBM, DR, Datalight, Novell, JP Software, ReactOS Contributors |
Operating system | RT-11, OS/8, RSX-11, OpenVMS, DOS, OS-9, MSX-DOS, FlexOS, SISNE plus, OS/2, Windows, ReactOS, KolibriOS, SymbOS, DexOS |
Platform | Cross-platform |
Type | Command |
In computing, del
(or erase
) is a command in command-line interpreters (shells) such as COMMAND.COM
, cmd.exe
, 4DOS, NDOS, 4OS2, 4NT and Windows PowerShell. It is used to delete one or more files or directories from a file system.
The command is available for various operating systems including DOS, Microware OS-9, [1] IBM OS/2, [2] Microsoft Windows [3] and ReactOS. [4] It is analogous to the Unix rm
command and to the Stratus OpenVOS delete_file
and delete_dir
commands. [5]
DEC RT-11, [6] OS/8, [7] RSX-11, [8] and OpenVMS [9] also provide the delete
command which can be contracted to del
. AmigaDOS [10] and TSC FLEX [11] provide a delete
command as well.
The erase
command is supported by Tim Paterson's SCP 86-DOS. [12] On MS-DOS, the command is available in versions 1 and later. [13] It is also available in the open-source MS-DOS emulator DOSBox.
Datalight ROM-DOS also includes an implementation of the del
and erase
commands. [14]
While Digital Research DR-DOS supports del
and erase
as well, it also supports the shorthand form era
, which derived from CP/M. In addition to this, the DR-DOS command processor also supports delq
/eraq
. These are shorthand forms for the del
/era
/erase
command with an assumed /Q
parameter (for 'Query') given as well. [15]
THEOS/OASIS [16] and FlexOS [17] provide only the erase
command.
In PowerShell, del
and erase
are predefined command aliases for the Remove-Item
cmdlet which basically serves the same purpose.
>del filename >erase filename