16 thoughts on “Good old DOS”

1. i only use dos for about 2 things,
   1, formating HDD – i just like doing it in dos for some reason
   2, network things like netsend, IP pings, getting ip address.

   Other than that i don’t really use it much

2. I like the solution :)

   I’ve created 8-10 solutions with a third party ActiveX control that handle different types of textfiles including merging files.

   It’s remarkable, but I still need to maintain an application that deals with the prn filformat…

   Hm, I wonder when the good old formats will *fully* be replaced by xml?

   Kind regards,
   Dennis

3. I often do a

   dir /B > list.txt

   or some other combination of Dir

   to get a quick list of files in a directory,
   import the list.txt file and voila

   Hui…

4. Actually I still use DOS (or at least the emulation of it) for a couple of things. I guess old habits don’t die. Anyone here administrating a domain server probably uses DOS commands for startup scripts for users.
   I reckon you could use this commands from Excel to for various purposes.

   A couple of things I use:

   1) Create a network share from a batch file:
   subst Z: \aserverashare
   This will create a virtual drive “Z:” linked to a share

   2) Or create a virtual drive of a directory:

   Subst R: D:ImageRouteplanner

   (Works for me to share a routeplanner of harddisk rather then from CDROM on our network.)

   3) Synchronize time with another computer:

   NET TIME \Computername /SET

   4) Or print a date sorted directory listing directly to a local printer:

   dir C:Data /ad /od > LPT1

   6) Delete an entire directory and it’s subdirectories from the prompt without question (use with caution):

   echo Y | del D:Somedir*.* /s

   etc. Everything can be combined; e.g. print the computers in your network neighberhood:

   net view > LPT1

   Basically everything that is handy to use on the prompt can be used within Excel to. .

   Rembo

5. There are so many Windows tools (most of them third party) that do the same things as lot of these DOS commands. I have found all sorts of neat tools on download.com.

   Ironically, about the only thing I use DOS for is to use UNIX commands, because I download some toolset of UNIX tools for DOS, so that I can use stuff like SED and GREP in DOS.

6. I weekly have to export 9 .csv files from out horrible data system and then I wrote a VBA function to combine them into one file. I like the ease of this info you posted here, I’ll see if processing the files this was is any faster. Here is what I currently do:

   ’32-bit API declarations
   Declare Function SHGetPathFromIDList Lib “shell32.dll” _
   Alias “SHGetPathFromIDListA” (ByVal pidl As Long, ByVal pszPath As String) As Long

   Declare Function SHBrowseForFolder Lib “shell32.dll” _
   Alias “SHBrowseForFolderA” (lpBrowseInfo As BROWSEINFO) As Long

   Public Type BROWSEINFO
   hOwner As Long
   pidlRoot As Long
   pszDisplayName As String
   lpszTitle As String
   ulFlags As Long
   lpfn As Long
   lParam As Long
   iImage As Long
   End Type

   Sub Combine_SnapShots()

   Dim strWorkfile As String
   Dim strPath As String

   ‘Skip Over Any Errors
   On Error Resume Next

   ‘Set Variables for File Name
   strWorkfile = “Combine BOM SnapShots”
   strPath = “\arlfs03sharedEngineeringENGYacht Development – MeridianInfoBOM”

   ‘Delete Previous File
   If Len(Dir(strPath & strWorkfile & “*.*”)) > 0 Then
   SetAttr strPath & strWorkfile & “.xls”, vbNormal
   Kill strPath & strWorkfile & “*.*”
   End If

   ‘Save Current File as Snapshot
   ActiveWorkbook.SaveAs filename:= _
   strPath & strWorkfile & “.xls”, _
   FileFormat:=xlNormal, Password:=””, WriteResPassword:=””, _
   ReadOnlyRecommended:=False, CreateBackup:=False

   Current_File = ActiveWorkbook.Name

   ‘Locate Directory of CSV files
   Msg = “Select a location containing the files you want to list.”
   Directory = GetDirectory(Msg)
   If Directory = “” Then Exit Sub
   If Right(Directory, 1) “” Then Directory = Directory & “”
   With Application.FileSearch
   .NewSearch
   .LookIn = Directory
   .filename = “*.csv”
   .SearchSubFolders = False
   .Execute

   Application.ScreenUpdating = False
   ‘Loop to copy the BOM Snapshots into Current_File
   For i = 1 To .FoundFiles.Count
   Workbooks.Open (.FoundFiles(i))
   New_WorkBook = ActiveWorkbook.Name
   Range(“A10?).Select
   Range(Selection, ActiveCell.SpecialCells(xlLastCell)).Select
   Selection.Copy
   Windows(Current_File).Activate
   ActiveCell.SpecialCells(xlLastCell).Select
   ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Select
   Selection.End(xlToLeft).Select
   ActiveSheet.Paste
   Application.CutCopyMode = False
   Windows(New_WorkBook).Close SaveChanges = False
   Next i
   End With

   ‘Clean up the file
   Format_SnapShot
   ActiveWorkbook.Save
   SetAttr strPath & strWorkfile & “.xls”, vbReadOnly
   Application.ScreenUpdating = True
   Range(“A1?).Select

   End Sub

   Function GetDirectory(Optional Msg) As String
   Dim bInfo As BROWSEINFO
   Dim path As String
   Dim r As Long, x As Long, pos As Integer

   ‘ Root folder = Desktop
   bInfo.pidlRoot = 0&

   ‘ Title in the dialog
   If IsMissing(Msg) Then
   bInfo.lpszTitle = “Select a folder.”
   Else
   bInfo.lpszTitle = Msg
   End If

   ‘ Type of directory to return
   bInfo.ulFlags = &H1

   ‘ Display the dialog
   x = SHBrowseForFolder(bInfo)

   ‘ Parse the result
   path = Space$(512)
   r = SHGetPathFromIDList(ByVal x, ByVal path)
   If r Then
   pos = InStr(path, Chr$(0))
   GetDirectory = Left(path, pos – 1)
   Else
   GetDirectory = “”
   End If
   End Function

   -Steve

7. Well, technically, if you are using cmd.exe it isn’t DOS. It’s the NT command line console that can be used as a less than perfectly compatible DOS emulation. The difference is only significant if you are tasked with getting old DOS programs to run under NT.

   In any case, I work with a *LOT* of CSV files coming from POS systems. I build flat file databases in excel with them which I then review for coding errors before copying them into Solomon. From time to time I have a use for command line tools as well. I use a variety of the gnuwin32 ports such as awk, sed and grep. The complete collection is available at:

   http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/

   An interesting graphical tool for working with CSV files is the CSVed. It and some other unique and useful text tools are available for free from:

   http://home.hccnet.nl/s.j.francke/t2t/text2table.htm

8. Oh, and if you are REALLY feeling nostalgic about DOS, there’s always:

   http://www.freedos.org/

9. There’s also PCDOS, DRDOS etc. If it’s just a commander you want, you might want to take a look at 4DOS (now free but unsupported). I’ve been using that from the beginning to create ‘magical’ batchfiles, with colored inputboxes etc. They were using pushd and popd before MS even heard about it. Great commander that I still use every now and then, even under Windows XP.

   http://www.jpsoft.com/download.html

   Rembo

10. i tried the

    copy *.csv all.txt

    and it is wrapping the end of each file with the new csv file (or 2nd file rather).

    is there a way to have it put in a “hard return” at the end of each file so it keeps each record on one line rather than wrapping?

    thanks!

11. steven: not using copy. The copy command reproduces each file EXACTLY, so if any are missing newlines at the end, those lines will be missing newlines in the combined file, so the first line of the next file will continue on that line in the combined file.

    You’d need to use a for loop calling more.

    (for %f in (*.csv) do @more %f) > all.txt

    Or you could fix your CSV files.

    for %f in (*.csv) do echo/>> %f

12. I’m a big fan of CMD.EXE under Windows XP (NT version was pretty good too). You can do some powerful stuff (and quickly) once you get round some counter-intuitive syntax issues.

    As an application support monkey on a domain with 3,500+ XP clients I’m happy to take advantage of anything I can to make life easier.

    For those who want to get into CMD scripts, I recommend Tim Hill’s excellent “Windows NT Shell Scripting”. Doesn’t cover XP and above but the first couple of chapters are invaluable.

    I haven’t found a better definitive introduction online.

    If I ever get my own website running I’ll be posting my favourite CMD script tips.

13. Learning by doing is best. Nothing beats participating in the alt.msdos.batch.nt newsgroup.

14. I have several .csv files in one folder. I have used the copy c:walley*.csv fred.csv. I need all of the merged csv files in one csv with a new name. This works fine, but the first row of each csv file are the same. I quess what I am asking is there a way to copy ranges.

15. Marcus, this isn’t the best forum for help with batch files. Better to use the alt.msdos.batch.nt or microsoft.public.win2000.cmdprompt.admin newsgroups.

    That said, if you want to skip a given number of lines in each file but the first, you could try the following batch file.

    @setlocal enableextensions
    @echo off
    if “%~1? == “” if “%~2? == “” (
    echo usage: “%~0? filemask targetfile [skiplines]
    goto :EOF
    )
    set tf=”%~2?
    if exist %tf% del %tf%
    if not “%~3? == “” set skip=+%~3
    for %%f in (“%~1?) do call :PROC “%%f”
    goto :EOF
    :PROC
    more %skipswitch% “%~1? >> %tf%
    set skipswitch=%skip%

16. I am using a similar command to generate a list of all files placed in a folder, check it out here:

    http://www.handyexceltips.com/2008/03/05/generating-list-of-the-contents-of-any-folder/

    Regards

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