| 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_dircommands. [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