In computing, a computer file is a resource for recording data on a computer storage device, primarily identified by its filename. Just as words can be written on paper, so too can data be written to a computer file. Files can be shared with and transferred between computers and mobile devices via removable media, networks, or the Internet.
An 8.3 filename is one that obeys the filename convention used by CP/M and old versions of DOS and versions of Microsoft Windows prior to Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.5. It is also used in modern Microsoft operating systems as an alternate filename to the long filename, to provide compatibility with legacy programs. The filename convention is limited by the FAT file system. Similar 8.3 file naming schemes have also existed on earlier CP/M, TRS-80, Atari, and some Data General and Digital Equipment Corporation minicomputer operating systems.
The cd command, also known as chdir, is a command-line shell command used to change the current working directory in various operating systems. It can be used in shell scripts and batch files.
In computing, dir (directory) is a command in various computer operating systems used for computer file and directory listing. 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.
The backslash\ is a mark used mainly in computing and mathematics. It is the mirror image of the common slash /. It is a relatively recent mark, first documented in the 1930s. It is sometimes called a hack, whack, escape, reverse slash, slosh, downwhack, backslant, backwhack, bash, reverse slant, reverse solidus, and reversed virgule.
An environment variable is a user-definable value that can affect the way running processes will behave on a computer. Environment variables are part of the environment in which a process runs. For example, a running process can query the value of the TEMP environment variable to discover a suitable location to store temporary files, or the HOME or USERPROFILE variable to find the directory structure owned by the user running the process.
A filename or file name is a name used to uniquely identify a computer file in a file system. Different file systems impose different restrictions on filename lengths.
In computer programming, glob patterns specify sets of filenames with wildcard characters. For example, the Unix Bash shell command mv *.txttextfiles/ moves all files with names ending in .txt from the current directory to the directory textfiles. Here, * is a wildcard and *.txt is a glob pattern. The wildcard * stands for "any string of any length including empty, but excluding the path separator characters ".
In Unix-like operating systems, find is a command-line utility that locates files based on some user-specified criteria and either prints the pathname of each matched object or, if another action is requested, performs that action on each matched object.
In computing, more is a command to view the contents of a text file one screen at a time. It is available on Unix and Unix-like systems, DOS, Digital Research FlexOS, IBM/Toshiba 4690 OS, IBM OS/2, Microsoft Windows and ReactOS. Programs of this sort are called pagers. more is a very basic pager, originally allowing only forward navigation through a file, though newer implementations do allow for limited backward movement.
Long filename (LFN) support is Microsoft's backward-compatible extension of the 8.3 filename naming scheme used in MS-DOS. Long filenames can be more descriptive, including longer filename extensions such as .jpeg, .tiff, and .html that are common on other operating systems, rather than specialized shortened names such as .jpg, .tif, or .htm. The standard has been common with File Allocation Table (FAT) filesystems since its first implementation in Windows NT 3.5 of 1994.
In computing, a hidden folder or hidden file is a folder or file which filesystem utilities do not display by default when showing a directory listing. They are commonly used for storing user preferences or preserving the state of a utility and are frequently created implicitly by using various utilities. They are not a security mechanism because access is not restricted – usually the intent is simply to not "clutter" the display of the contents of a directory listing with files the user did not directly create.
NTFS links are the abstraction used in the NTFS file system—the default file system for all Microsoft Windows versions belonging to the Windows NT family—to associate pathnames and certain kinds of metadata, with entries in the NTFS Master File Table (MFT). NTFS broadly adopts a pattern akin to typical Unix file systems in the way it stores and references file data and metadata; the most significant difference is that in NTFS, the MFT "takes the place of" inodes, fulfilling most of the functions which inodes fulfill in a typical Unix filesystem.
In programming, a file uniform resource identifier (URI) scheme is a specific format of URI, used to specifically identify a file on a host computer. While URIs can be used to identify anything, there is specific syntax associated with identifying files.
A batch file is a script file in DOS, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows. It consists of a series of commands to be executed by the command-line interpreter, stored in a plain text file. A batch file may contain any command the interpreter accepts interactively and use constructs that enable conditional branching and looping within the batch file, such as IF, FOR, and GOTO labels. The term "batch" is from batch processing, meaning "non-interactive execution", though a batch file might not process a batch of multiple data.
In computing, pushd and popd are a pair of commands which allow users to quickly switch between the current and previous directory when using the command line. When called, they use a directory stack to sequentially save and retrieve directories visited by the user.
PATH is an environment variable on Unix-like operating systems, DOS, OS/2, and Microsoft Windows, specifying a set of directories where executable programs are located. In general, each executing process or user session has its own PATH setting.
In computing, a directory structure is the way an operating system arranges files that are accessible to the user. Files are typically displayed in a hierarchical tree structure.
A command-line interface (CLI) is a means of interacting with a computer program by inputting lines of text called command-lines. Command-line interfaces emerged in the mid-1960s, on computer terminals, as an interactive and more user-friendly alternative to the non-interactive interface available with punched cards.
In computing, findstr is a command in the command-line interpreters (shells) of Microsoft Windows and ReactOS. It is used to search for a specific text string in computer files.
