DOS 1 - Day 3

Goals

• test your knowledge so far
• learn how to format disks
• use redirection, including infiles, outfiles, and pipes

Review!

Pop Quiz!

1. insert your floppy
2. go to the root directory of your floppy (HINT: check your prompt!)
3. make a new directory called "popquiz"
4. change directories to popquiz
5. make two new directories called "pop_1" and "pop_2"
6. change directories to pop_1
7. make a file called "results.txt" containing the text "Hey, I know this stuff!". Check your work (HINT: use dir to see if your file is where you think it is)
8. copy the results.txt to the parent directory of pop_1. Check your work!

format!

• format a:
• be sure to check out the /? on this command. There's a useful switch for quickformatting an already-formatted disk.

redirection

• IO and the STanDard OUTput and STanDard INput.
• type will print the contents of a file to STDOUT
  type [filename]
• echo echoes/prints something to the STDOUT.
  Try something like echo "hello there" and see what happens. Then try echo %PATH%. echo also has another use in batch files which we'll cover later.
• copy con is a way to write to a file directly from the console (ie, keyboard).
• >, the "outfile operator". This sends STDOUT to a file, overwriting it if it previously existed. Do you remember rem > [filename]? Does it make more sense now?
  Try this: dir > dirfile. Now edit/type dirfile and see what you've got.
• >>, the "append operator". Like the outfile operator only it appends (ie, adds to) the file.
  copy con > [filename]. Everything you type until you end the file with a CTRL-Z will be written to the file.
• <, the "infile operator". This one's a bit more tricky, as it provides input to a running program.
  Activity: automate the quickformat process
• |, pipe, the way to pipeline STDOUT from one process into STDIN of another one.
  example: dir c:\ | more

Homework

Remember, your login is based on your machine's hostname, not on any other number.
~/[initials] refers to the subdirectory under your homedir, named after your initials. Everything except for .dotfiles will be stored in your ~/[initials] directory.