computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, ...

, dpath is an internal cmd.exe

command Command may refer to: Computing * Command (computing), a statement in a computer language * COMMAND.COM, the default operating system shell and command-line interpreter for DOS * Command key, a modifier key on Apple Macintosh computer keyboards ...

on IBM

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 ...

and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

https://ss64.com/nt/path.html#dpath that allows using a set of files with the

TYPE 
Type may refer to:
 Science and technology Computing
* Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc.
* Data type, collection of values used for computations.
* File type
*  TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file.
* Ty ...

command and with input redirection as if they are in the current directory. On Windows it is undocumented and deprecated. dpath differs from the

append 
In computer programming, append is the operation for concatenating linked lists or  arrays in some high-level programming languages.
 Lisp
Append originates in the Lisp programming language. The append procedure takes zero or more  (linked) lists a ...

command in the way it operates. dpath informs programs what directories they should search in order to find

computer file A computer file is a computer resource for recording data in a computer storage device, primarily identified by its file name. Just as words can be written to paper, so can data be written to a computer file. Files can be shared with and trans ...

s. It is then up to the applications to recognize %DPATH%. Using the append command on the other side, programs are able to find files without recognizing that the command is in effect.

History

In DOS the append command allows programs to open data files in specified directories as if they were in the current directory. Since

Windows NT Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system. The first version of Wi ...

this is not working as the cmd.exe introduced command processor extensions and append become redundant. Despite this the executable was and is still available in

32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32- bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calcula ...

versions of Windows. Anyway, the command relied on %DPATH%

environment variable An environment variable is a dynamic-named value that can affect the way running processes will behave on a computer. They are part of the environment in which a process runs. For example, a running process can query the value of the TEMP env ...

, which can be edited with the dpath command. In the modern Windows installations only the dpath command is working despite the help message still is pointing to the append command.

Syntax

DPATH pathname

pathname A path is a string of characters used to uniquely identify a location in a directory structure. It is composed by following the directory tree hierarchy in which components, separated by a delimiting character, represent each directory. The del ...

.. DPATH DPATH ; pathname : drive letter and/or folder ; : the command 'DPATH ;' will clear the path Without parameters the will display the current list of the directories. Editing %DPATH% environment variable also can be used. DPATH /? will print the append command help message.

Usage

Input redirection: C:\>echo hello>c:\test\in.txt C:\batch>type c:\test\in.txt hello C:\>dir /a /b C:\>set /p var=set var Environment variable var not defined C:\>dpath c:\test; C:\>set /p var=set var var=hello With TYPE command: C:\>echo hello>c:\test\in.txt C:\batch>type c:\test\in.txt hello C:\>dir /a /b C:\>set /p var=type in.txt hello

References

External links

Microsoft TechNet Append article
{{Windows commands External DOS commands OS/2 commands Windows commands

History

Syntax

Usage

See also

References

Further reading

External links