Dir (command)

Last updated
dir
Developers DEC, DR, Intel, Cromemco, MetaComCo, Microsoft, IBM, Datalight, ICD, Inc.
Operating system CP/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, AmigaDOS
Platform Cross-platform
Type Command
License CP/M, MP/M: BSD-like
MS-DOS: MIT
PC-MOS: GPL-3.0-only
ReactOS: GPL

dir, short for directory, is a shell command for listing file system contents: files and directories. [1] Arguably, the command provides the same essential functionality as the ls command, but typically the two commands are described as notably separate concepts, possibly since ls is implemented from a codebase that shares more history than many dir implementations.

Contents

The command is often implemented as internal in the operating system shell instead of as a separate application as many other commands are.

Variants

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

Although syntax, semantics and implementations vary, a dir command with essentially the same functionality is available in the operating systems: CP/M, [2] MP/M, [3] ISIS-II, [4] iRMX 86, [5] CDOS, [6] TRIPOS, [7] DOS, 4690 OS, [8] OS/2, [9] Windows, [10] Singularity, ROM-DOS, [11] ReactOS, [12] GNU, [13] AROS, [14] VMS, RT-11, RSX-11, OS/8, 86-DOS, [15] MS-DOS (in versions 1 and later), [16] and DOSBox.

Some applications also provide a dir command with similar functionality. The typical File Transfer Protocol (FTP) command-line client provides a dir command for listing a remote directory. The numerical computing environments MATLAB and GNU Octave include a dir command. [17] [18]

Generally, Unix-like systems use the ls command for the needs that dir satisfies in other types of systems. Notably, the Unix-like GNU operating system, provides 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]

Examples

CP/M 3.0 directory listing on a Commodore 128 home computer. Commodore C128 CPM Screenshot 2 full.jpg
CP/M 3.0 directory listing on a Commodore 128 home computer.
Directory listing on SCP running on a robotron PC 1715. Robotron1715SCREEN.gif
Directory listing on SCP running on a robotron PC 1715.
Directory listing on CP/J 2.21 running on an Elwro 804 Junior. J Elwro 804 Junior.JPG
Directory listing on CP/J 2.21 running on an Elwro 804 Junior.
Microsoft Windows Command Prompt showing a directory listing. Dir command in Windows Command Prompt.png
Microsoft Windows Command Prompt showing a directory listing.

List all files and directories in the working directory.

C:\Users>dir

List text and batch files of the working directory by specifying filename extensions ".txt" or ".bat" with the "*" wildcard character that matches any base file name.

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

List files and directories in the specified directory and any subdirectories, recursively, 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 space.

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

List any NTFS junction points:

<syntaxhighlight lang="doscon" class="tpl-codett" style="border:none; padding: 0px 0px; color:var(--color-base, #202122); background:transparent; " inline="1">C:\Users>dir /ash</syntaxhighlight> <syntaxhighlight lang="output" class="tpl-codett" style="border:none; padding: 0px 0px; color:var(--color-base, #202122); background:transparent; " inline="1">Volume in drive C is OS.</syntaxhighlight> <syntaxhighlight lang="output" class="tpl-codett" style="border:none; padding: 0px 0px; color:var(--color-base, #202122); background:transparent; " inline="1">Volume Serial Number is xxxx-xxxx</syntaxhighlight> <syntaxhighlight lang="output" class="tpl-codett" style="border:none; padding: 0px 0px; color:var(--color-base, #202122); background:transparent; " inline="1">Directory of C:\Users</syntaxhighlight> <syntaxhighlight lang="output" class="tpl-codett" style="border:none; padding: 0px 0px; color:var(--color-base, #202122); background:transparent; " inline="1">12/07/2019  02:30 AM    <SYMLINKD>     All Users [C:\ProgramData]</syntaxhighlight> <syntaxhighlight lang="output" class="tpl-codett" style="border:none; padding: 0px 0px; color:var(--color-base, #202122); background:transparent; " inline="1">12/07/2019  02:30 AM    <JUNCTION>     Default User [C:\Users\Default]</syntaxhighlight> <syntaxhighlight lang="output" class="tpl-codett" style="border:none; padding: 0px 0px; color:var(--color-base, #202122); background:transparent; " inline="1">12/07/2019  02:12 AM               174 desktop.ini</syntaxhighlight>               <syntaxhighlight lang="output" class="tpl-codett" style="border:none; padding: 0px 0px; color:var(--color-base, #202122); background:transparent; " inline="1">1 File(s)            174 bytes</syntaxhighlight>               <syntaxhighlight lang="output" class="tpl-codett" style="border:none; padding: 0px 0px; color:var(--color-base, #202122); background:transparent; " inline="1">2 Dir(s)  332,659,789,824 bytes free</syntaxhighlight>

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.
  8. ↑ [ dead link ]
  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. Archived from the original on 2020-01-02. Retrieved 2025-08-10.
  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

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.