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from __future__ import annotations
from inspect import getdoc
def _help(cls: type):
name = cls.__name__
help = getdoc(cls) or ''
HelpOutput[name] = help
return help
HelpOutput: dict[str, str] = {}
@_help
class CALL:
"""
Calls one batch program from another.
CALL [drive:][path]filename [batch-parameters]
batch-parameters Specifies any command-line information required by the
batch program.
If Command Extensions are enabled CALL changes as follows:
CALL command now accepts labels as the target of the CALL. The syntax
is:
CALL :label arguments
A new batch file context is created with the specified arguments and
control is passed to the statement after the label specified. You must
"exit" twice by reaching the end of the batch script file twice. The
first time you read the end, control will return to just after the CALL
statement. The second time will exit the batch script. Type GOTO /?
for a description of the GOTO :EOF extension that will allow you to
"return" from a batch script.
In addition, expansion of batch script argument references (%0, %1,
etc.) have been changed as follows:
%* in a batch script refers to all the arguments (e.g. %1 %2 %3
%4 %5 ...)
Substitution of batch parameters (%n) has been enhanced. You can
now use the following optional syntax:
%~1 - expands %1 removing any surrounding quotes (")
%~f1 - expands %1 to a fully qualified path name
%~d1 - expands %1 to a drive letter only
%~p1 - expands %1 to a path only
%~n1 - expands %1 to a file name only
%~x1 - expands %1 to a file extension only
%~s1 - expanded path contains short names only
%~a1 - expands %1 to file attributes
%~t1 - expands %1 to date/time of file
%~z1 - expands %1 to size of file
%~$PATH:1 - searches the directories listed in the PATH
environment variable and expands %1 to the fully
qualified name of the first one found. If the
environment variable name is not defined or the
file is not found by the search, then this
modifier expands to the empty string
The modifiers can be combined to get compound results:
%~dp1 - expands %1 to a drive letter and path only
%~nx1 - expands %1 to a file name and extension only
%~dp$PATH:1 - searches the directories listed in the PATH
environment variable for %1 and expands to the
drive letter and path of the first one found.
%~ftza1 - expands %1 to a DIR like output line
In the above examples %1 and PATH can be replaced by other
valid values. The %~ syntax is terminated by a valid argument
number. The %~ modifiers may not be used with %*
"""
@_help
class SET:
"""
Displays, sets, or removes cmd.exe environment variables.
SET [variable=[string]]
variable Specifies the environment-variable name.
string Specifies a series of characters to assign to the variable.
Type SET without parameters to display the current environment variables.
If Command Extensions are enabled SET changes as follows:
SET command invoked with just a variable name, no equal sign or value
will display the value of all variables whose prefix matches the name
given to the SET command. For example:
SET P
would display all variables that begin with the letter 'P'
SET command will set the ERRORLEVEL to 1 if the variable name is not
found in the current environment.
SET command will not allow an equal sign to be part of the name of
a variable.
Two new switches have been added to the SET command:
SET /A expression
SET /P variable=[promptString]
The /A switch specifies that the string to the right of the equal sign
is a numerical expression that is evaluated. The expression evaluator
is pretty simple and supports the following operations, in decreasing
order of precedence:
() - grouping
! ~ - - unary operators
* / % - arithmetic operators
+ - - arithmetic operators
<< >> - logical shift
& - bitwise and
^ - bitwise exclusive or
| - bitwise or
= *= /= %= += -= - assignment
&= ^= |= <<= >>=
, - expression separator
If you use any of the logical or modulus operators, you will need to
enclose the expression string in quotes. Any non-numeric strings in the
expression are treated as environment variable names whose values are
converted to numbers before using them. If an environment variable name
is specified but is not defined in the current environment, then a value
of zero is used. This allows you to do arithmetic with environment
variable values without having to type all those % signs to get their
values. If SET /A is executed from the command line outside of a
command script, then it displays the final value of the expression. The
assignment operator requires an environment variable name to the left of
the assignment operator. Numeric values are decimal numbers, unless
prefixed by 0x for hexadecimal numbers, and 0 for octal numbers.
So 0x12 is the same as 18 is the same as 022. Please note that the octal
notation can be confusing: 08 and 09 are not valid numbers because 8 and
9 are not valid octal digits.
The /P switch allows you to set the value of a variable to a line of input
entered by the user. Displays the specified promptString before reading
the line of input. The promptString can be empty.
Environment variable substitution has been enhanced as follows:
%PATH:str1=str2%
would expand the PATH environment variable, substituting each occurrence
of "str1" in the expanded result with "str2". "str2" can be the empty
string to effectively delete all occurrences of "str1" from the expanded
output. "str1" can begin with an asterisk, in which case it will match
everything from the beginning of the expanded output to the first
occurrence of the remaining portion of str1.
May also specify substrings for an expansion.
%PATH:~10,5%
would expand the PATH environment variable, and then use only the 5
characters that begin at the 11th (offset 10) character of the expanded
result. If the length is not specified, then it defaults to the
remainder of the variable value. If either number (offset or length) is
negative, then the number used is the length of the environment variable
value added to the offset or length specified.
%PATH:~-10%
would extract the last 10 characters of the PATH variable.
%PATH:~0,-2%
would extract all but the last 2 characters of the PATH variable.
Finally, support for delayed environment variable expansion has been
added. This support is always disabled by default, but may be
enabled/disabled via the /V command line switch to CMD.EXE. See CMD /?
Delayed environment variable expansion is useful for getting around
the limitations of the current expansion which happens when a line
of text is read, not when it is executed. The following example
demonstrates the problem with immediate variable expansion:
set VAR=before
if "%VAR%" == "before" (
set VAR=after
if "%VAR%" == "after" @echo If you see this, it worked
)
would never display the message, since the %VAR% in BOTH IF statements
is substituted when the first IF statement is read, since it logically
includes the body of the IF, which is a compound statement. So the
IF inside the compound statement is really comparing "before" with
"after" which will never be equal. Similarly, the following example
will not work as expected:
set LIST=
for %i in (*) do set LIST=%LIST% %i
echo %LIST%
in that it will NOT build up a list of files in the current directory,
but instead will just set the LIST variable to the last file found.
Again, this is because the %LIST% is expanded just once when the
FOR statement is read, and at that time the LIST variable is empty.
So the actual FOR loop we are executing is:
for %i in (*) do set LIST= %i
which just keeps setting LIST to the last file found.
Delayed environment variable expansion allows you to use a different
character (the exclamation mark) to expand environment variables at
execution time. If delayed variable expansion is enabled, the above
examples could be written as follows to work as intended:
set VAR=before
if "%VAR%" == "before" (
set VAR=after
if "!VAR!" == "after" @echo If you see this, it worked
)
set LIST=
for %i in (*) do set LIST=!LIST! %i
echo %LIST%
If Command Extensions are enabled, then there are several dynamic
environment variables that can be expanded but which don't show up in
the list of variables displayed by SET. These variable values are
computed dynamically each time the value of the variable is expanded.
If the user explicitly defines a variable with one of these names, then
that definition will override the dynamic one described below:
%CD% - expands to the current directory string.
%DATE% - expands to current date using same format as DATE command.
%TIME% - expands to current time using same format as TIME command.
%RANDOM% - expands to a random decimal number between 0 and 32767.
%ERRORLEVEL% - expands to the current ERRORLEVEL value
%CMDEXTVERSION% - expands to the current Command Processor Extensions
version number.
%CMDCMDLINE% - expands to the original command line that invoked the
Command Processor.
%HIGHESTNUMANODENUMBER% - expands to the highest NUMA node number
on this machine.
"""
@_help
class SETLOCAL:
"""
Begins localization of environment changes in a batch file. Environment
changes made after SETLOCAL has been issued are local to the batch file.
ENDLOCAL must be issued to restore the previous settings. When the end
of a batch script is reached, an implied ENDLOCAL is executed for any
outstanding SETLOCAL commands issued by that batch script.
SETLOCAL
If Command Extensions are enabled SETLOCAL changes as follows:
SETLOCAL batch command now accepts optional arguments:
ENABLEEXTENSIONS / DISABLEEXTENSIONS
enable or disable command processor extensions. These
arguments takes precedence over the CMD /E:ON or /E:OFF
switches. See CMD /? for details.
ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION / DISABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
enable or disable delayed environment variable
expansion. These arguments takes precedence over the CMD
/V:ON or /V:OFF switches. See CMD /? for details.
These modifications last until the matching ENDLOCAL command,
regardless of their setting prior to the SETLOCAL command.
The SETLOCAL command will set the ERRORLEVEL value if given
an argument. It will be zero if one of the two valid arguments
is given and one otherwise. You can use this in batch scripts
to determine if the extensions are available, using the following
technique:
VERIFY OTHER 2>nul
SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS
IF ERRORLEVEL 1 echo Unable to enable extensions
This works because on old versions of CMD.EXE, SETLOCAL does NOT
set the ERRORLEVEL value. The VERIFY command with a bad argument
initializes the ERRORLEVEL value to a non-zero value.
"""
@_help
class ENDLOCAL:
"""
Ends localization of environment changes in a batch file.
Environment changes made after ENDLOCAL has been issued are
not local to the batch file; the previous settings are not
restored on termination of the batch file.
ENDLOCAL
If Command Extensions are enabled ENDLOCAL changes as follows:
If the corresponding SETLOCAL enable or disabled command extensions
using the new ENABLEEXTENSIONS or DISABLEEXTENSIONS options, then
after the ENDLOCAL, the enabled/disabled state of command extensions
will be restored to what it was prior to the matching SETLOCAL
command execution.
"""
@_help
class GOTO:
"""
Directs cmd.exe to a labeled line in a batch program.
GOTO label
label Specifies a text string used in the batch program as a label.
You type a label on a line by itself, beginning with a colon.
If Command Extensions are enabled GOTO changes as follows:
GOTO command now accepts a target label of :EOF which transfers control
to the end of the current batch script file. This is an easy way to
exit a batch script file without defining a label. Type CALL /? for a
description of extensions to the CALL command that make this feature
useful.
Executing GOTO :EOF after a CALL with a target label will return control
to the statement immediately following the CALL.
"""
@_help
class EXIT:
"""
Quits the CMD.EXE program (command interpreter) or the current batch
script.
EXIT [/B] [exitCode]
/B specifies to exit the current batch script instead of
CMD.EXE. If executed from outside a batch script, it
will quit CMD.EXE
exitCode specifies a numeric number. if /B is specified, sets
ERRORLEVEL that number. If quitting CMD.EXE, sets the process
exit code with that number.
If Command Extensions are enabled EXIT changes as follows:
Executing EXIT /B after a CALL with a target label will return control
to the statement immediately following the CALL.
"""
@_help
class CHDIR:
r"""
Displays the name of or changes the current directory.
CHDIR [/D] [drive:][path]
CHDIR [..]
CD [/D] [drive:][path]
CD [..]
.. Specifies that you want to change to the parent directory.
Type CD drive: to display the current directory in the specified drive.
Type CD without parameters to display the current drive and directory.
Use the /D switch to change current drive in addition to changing current
directory for a drive.
If Command Extensions are enabled CHDIR changes as follows:
The current directory string is converted to use the same case as
the on disk names. So CD C:\TEMP would actually set the current
directory to C:\Temp if that is the case on disk.
CHDIR command does not treat spaces as delimiters, so it is possible to
CD into a subdirectory name that contains a space without surrounding
the name with quotes. For example:
cd \winnt\profiles\username\programs\start menu
is the same as:
cd "\winnt\profiles\username\programs\start menu"
which is what you would have to type if extensions were disabled.
"""
@_help
class PUSHD:
"""
Stores the current directory for use by the POPD command, then
changes to the specified directory.
PUSHD [path | ..]
path Specifies the directory to make the current directory.
If Command Extensions are enabled the PUSHD command accepts
network paths in addition to the normal drive letter and path.
If a network path is specified, PUSHD will create a temporary
drive letter that points to that specified network resource and
then change the current drive and directory, using the newly
defined drive letter. Temporary drive letters are allocated from
Z: on down, using the first unused drive letter found.
"""
@_help
class POPD:
"""
Changes to the directory stored by the PUSHD command.
POPD
If Command Extensions are enabled the POPD command will delete
any temporary drive letter created by PUSHD when you POPD that
drive off the pushed directory stack.
"""
@_help
class ECHO:
"""
Displays messages, or turns command-echoing on or off.
ECHO [ON | OFF]
ECHO [message]
Type ECHO without parameters to display the current echo setting.
"""
@_help
class DEL:
"""
Deletes one or more files.
DEL [/P] [/F] [/S] [/Q] [/A[[:]attributes]] names
ERASE [/P] [/F] [/S] [/Q] [/A[[:]attributes]] names
names Specifies a list of one or more files or directories.
Wildcards may be used to delete multiple files. If a
directory is specified, all files within the directory
will be deleted.
/P Prompts for confirmation before deleting each file.
/F Force deleting of read-only files.
/S Delete specified files from all subdirectories.
/Q Quiet mode, do not ask if ok to delete on global wildcard
/A Selects files to delete based on attributes
attributes R Read-only files S System files
H Hidden files A Files ready for archiving
I Not content indexed Files L Reparse Points
O Offline files - Prefix meaning not
If Command Extensions are enabled DEL and ERASE change as follows:
The display semantics of the /S switch are reversed in that it shows
you only the files that are deleted, not the ones it could not find.
"""
@_help
class FOR:
"""
Runs a specified command for each file in a set of files.
FOR %variable IN (set) DO command [command-parameters]
%variable Specifies a single letter replaceable parameter.
(set) Specifies a set of one or more files. Wildcards may be used.
command Specifies the command to carry out for each file.
command-parameters
Specifies parameters or switches for the specified command.
To use the FOR command in a batch program, specify %%variable instead
of %variable. Variable names are case sensitive, so %i is different
from %I.
If Command Extensions are enabled, the following additional
forms of the FOR command are supported:
FOR /D %variable IN (set) DO command [command-parameters]
If set contains wildcards, then specifies to match against directory
names instead of file names.
FOR /R [[drive:]path] %variable IN (set) DO command [command-parameters]
Walks the directory tree rooted at [drive:]path, executing the FOR
statement in each directory of the tree. If no directory
specification is specified after /R then the current directory is
assumed. If set is just a single period (.) character then it
will just enumerate the directory tree.
FOR /L %variable IN (start,step,end) DO command [command-parameters]
The set is a sequence of numbers from start to end, by step amount.
So (1,1,5) would generate the sequence 1 2 3 4 5 and (5,-1,1) would
generate the sequence (5 4 3 2 1)
FOR /F ["options"] %variable IN (file-set) DO command [command-parameters]
FOR /F ["options"] %variable IN ("string") DO command [command-parameters]
FOR /F ["options"] %variable IN ('command') DO command [command-parameters]
or, if usebackq option present:
FOR /F ["options"] %variable IN (file-set) DO command [command-parameters]
FOR /F ["options"] %variable IN ('string') DO command [command-parameters]
FOR /F ["options"] %variable IN (`command`) DO command [command-parameters]
file-set is one or more file names. Each file is opened, read
and processed before going on to the next file in file-set.
Processing consists of reading in the file, breaking it up into
individual lines of text and then parsing each line into zero or
more tokens. The body of the for loop is then called with the
variable value(s) set to the found token string(s). By default, /F
passes the first blank separated token from each line of each file.
Blank lines are skipped. You can override the default parsing
behavior by specifying the optional "options" parameter. This
is a quoted string which contains one or more keywords to specify
different parsing options. The keywords are:
eol=c - specifies an end of line comment character
(just one)
skip=n - specifies the number of lines to skip at the
beginning of the file.
delims=xxx - specifies a delimiter set. This replaces the
default delimiter set of space and tab.
tokens=x,y,m-n - specifies which tokens from each line are to
be passed to the for body for each iteration.
This will cause additional variable names to
be allocated. The m-n form is a range,
specifying the mth through the nth tokens. If
the last character in the tokens= string is an
asterisk, then an additional variable is
allocated and receives the remaining text on
the line after the last token parsed.
usebackq - specifies that the new semantics are in force,
where a back quoted string is executed as a
command and a single quoted string is a
literal string command and allows the use of
double quotes to quote file names in
file-set.
Some examples might help:
FOR /F "eol=; tokens=2,3* delims=, " %i in (myfile.txt) do @echo %i %j %k
would parse each line in myfile.txt, ignoring lines that begin with
a semicolon, passing the 2nd and 3rd token from each line to the for
body, with tokens delimited by commas and/or spaces. Notice the for
body statements reference %i to get the 2nd token, %j to get the
3rd token, and %k to get all remaining tokens after the 3rd. For
file names that contain spaces, you need to quote the filenames with
double quotes. In order to use double quotes in this manner, you also
need to use the usebackq option, otherwise the double quotes will be
interpreted as defining a literal string to parse.
%i is explicitly declared in the for statement and the %j and %k
are implicitly declared via the tokens= option. You can specify up
to 26 tokens via the tokens= line, provided it does not cause an
attempt to declare a variable higher than the letter 'z' or 'Z'.
Remember, FOR variables are single-letter, case sensitive, global,
and you can't have more than 52 total active at any one time.
You can also use the FOR /F parsing logic on an immediate string, by
making the file-set between the parenthesis a quoted string,
using single quote characters. It will be treated as a single line
of input from a file and parsed.
Finally, you can use the FOR /F command to parse the output of a
command. You do this by making the file-set between the
parenthesis a back quoted string. It will be treated as a command
line, which is passed to a child CMD.EXE and the output is captured
into memory and parsed as if it was a file. So the following
example:
FOR /F "usebackq delims==" %i IN (`set`) DO @echo %i
would enumerate the environment variable names in the current
environment.
In addition, substitution of FOR variable references has been enhanced.
You can now use the following optional syntax:
%~I - expands %I removing any surrounding quotes (")
%~fI - expands %I to a fully qualified path name
%~dI - expands %I to a drive letter only
%~pI - expands %I to a path only
%~nI - expands %I to a file name only
%~xI - expands %I to a file extension only
%~sI - expanded path contains short names only
%~aI - expands %I to file attributes of file
%~tI - expands %I to date/time of file
%~zI - expands %I to size of file
%~$PATH:I - searches the directories listed in the PATH
environment variable and expands %I to the
fully qualified name of the first one found.
If the environment variable name is not
defined or the file is not found by the
search, then this modifier expands to the
empty string
The modifiers can be combined to get compound results:
%~dpI - expands %I to a drive letter and path only
%~nxI - expands %I to a file name and extension only
%~fsI - expands %I to a full path name with short names only
%~dp$PATH:I - searches the directories listed in the PATH
environment variable for %I and expands to the
drive letter and path of the first one found.
%~ftzaI - expands %I to a DIR like output line
In the above examples %I and PATH can be replaced by other valid
values. The %~ syntax is terminated by a valid FOR variable name.
Picking upper case variable names like %I makes it more readable and
avoids confusion with the modifiers, which are not case sensitive.
"""
@_help
class IF:
"""
Performs conditional processing in batch programs.
IF [NOT] ERRORLEVEL number command
IF [NOT] string1==string2 command
IF [NOT] EXIST filename command
NOT Specifies that Windows should carry out
the command only if the condition is false.
ERRORLEVEL number Specifies a true condition if the last program run
returned an exit code equal to or greater than the number
specified.
string1==string2 Specifies a true condition if the specified text strings
match.
EXIST filename Specifies a true condition if the specified filename
exists.
command Specifies the command to carry out if the condition is
met. Command can be followed by ELSE command which
will execute the command after the ELSE keyword if the
specified condition is FALSE
The ELSE clause must occur on the same line as the command after the IF. For
example:
IF EXIST filename. (
del filename.
) ELSE (
echo filename. missing.
)
The following would NOT work because the del command needs to be terminated
by a newline:
IF EXIST filename. del filename. ELSE echo filename. missing
Nor would the following work, since the ELSE command must be on the same line
as the end of the IF command:
IF EXIST filename. del filename.
ELSE echo filename. missing
The following would work if you want it all on one line:
IF EXIST filename. (del filename.) ELSE echo filename. missing
If Command Extensions are enabled IF changes as follows:
IF [/I] string1 compare-op string2 command
IF CMDEXTVERSION number command
IF DEFINED variable command
where compare-op may be one of:
EQU - equal
NEQ - not equal
LSS - less than
LEQ - less than or equal
GTR - greater than
GEQ - greater than or equal
and the /I switch, if specified, says to do case insensitive string
compares. The /I switch can also be used on the string1==string2 form
of IF. These comparisons are generic, in that if both string1 and
string2 are both comprised of all numeric digits, then the strings are
converted to numbers and a numeric comparison is performed.
The CMDEXTVERSION conditional works just like ERRORLEVEL, except it is
comparing against an internal version number associated with the Command
Extensions. The first version is 1. It will be incremented by one when
significant enhancements are added to the Command Extensions.
CMDEXTVERSION conditional is never true when Command Extensions are
disabled.
The DEFINED conditional works just like EXIST except it takes an
environment variable name and returns true if the environment variable
is defined.
%ERRORLEVEL% will expand into a string representation of
the current value of ERRORLEVEL, provided that there is not already
an environment variable with the name ERRORLEVEL, in which case you
will get its value instead. After running a program, the following
illustrates ERRORLEVEL use:
goto answer%ERRORLEVEL%
:answer0
echo Program had return code 0
:answer1
echo Program had return code 1
You can also use numerical comparisons above:
IF %ERRORLEVEL% LEQ 1 goto okay
%CMDCMDLINE% will expand into the original command line passed to
CMD.EXE prior to any processing by CMD.EXE, provided that there is not
already an environment variable with the name CMDCMDLINE, in which case
you will get its value instead.
%CMDEXTVERSION% will expand into a string representation of the
current value of CMDEXTVERSION, provided that there is not already
an environment variable with the name CMDEXTVERSION, in which case you
will get its value instead.
"""
@_help
class FINDSTR:
r"""
Searches for strings in files.
FINDSTR [/B] [/E] [/L] [/R] [/S] [/I] [/X] [/V] [/N] [/M] [/O] [/P] [/F:file]
[/C:string] [/G:file] [/D:dir list] [/A:color attributes] [/OFF[LINE]]
strings [[drive:][path]filename[ ...]]
/B Matches pattern if at the beginning of a line.
/E Matches pattern if at the end of a line.
/L Uses search strings literally.
/R Uses search strings as regular expressions.
/S Searches for matching files in the current directory and all
subdirectories.
/I Specifies that the search is not to be case-sensitive.
/X Prints lines that match exactly.
/V Prints only lines that do not contain a match.
/N Prints the line number before each line that matches.
/M Prints only the filename if a file contains a match.
/O Prints character offset before each matching line.
/P Skip files with non-printable characters.
/OFF[LINE] Do not skip files with offline attribute set.
/A:attr Specifies color attribute with two hex digits. See "color /?"
/F:file Reads file list from the specified file(/ stands for console).
/C:string Uses specified string as a literal search string.
/G:file Gets search strings from the specified file(/ stands for console).
/D:dir Search a semicolon delimited list of directories
/Q:qflags Quiet mode flags:
u Suppress warning about unsupported Unicode formats
strings Text to be searched for.
[drive:][path]filename
Specifies a file or files to search.
Use spaces to separate multiple search strings unless the argument is prefixed
with /C. For example, 'FINDSTR "hello there" x.y' searches for "hello" or
"there" in file x.y. 'FINDSTR /C:"hello there" x.y' searches for
"hello there" in file x.y.
Regular expression quick reference:
. Wildcard: any character
* Repeat: zero or more occurrences of previous character or class
^ Line position: beginning of line
$ Line position: end of line
[class] Character class: any one character in set
[^class] Inverse class: any one character not in set
[x-y] Range: any characters within the specified range
\x Escape: literal use of metacharacter x
\<xyz Word position: beginning of word
xyz\> Word position: end of word
For full information on FINDSTR regular expressions refer to the online Command
Reference.
"""
@_help
class FIND:
"""
Searches for a text string in a file or files.
FIND [/V] [/C] [/N] [/I] [/OFF[LINE]] "string" [[drive:][path]filename[ ...]]
/V Displays all lines NOT containing the specified string.
/C Displays only the count of lines containing the string.
/N Displays line numbers with the displayed lines.
/I Ignores the case of characters when searching for the string.
/OFF[LINE] Do not skip files with offline attribute set.
"string" Specifies the text string to find.
[drive:][path]filename
Specifies a file or files to search.
If a path is not specified, FIND searches the text typed at the prompt
or piped from another command.
"""
@_help
class CLS:
"""
Clears the screen.
CLS
"""
@_help
class TYPE:
"""
Displays the contents of a text file or files.
TYPE [drive:][path]filename
"""
@_help
class START:
"""
Starts a separate window to run a specified program or command.
START ["title"] [/D path] [/I] [/MIN] [/MAX] [/SEPARATE | /SHARED]
[/LOW | /NORMAL | /HIGH | /REALTIME | /ABOVENORMAL | /BELOWNORMAL]
[/NODE <NUMA node>] [/AFFINITY <hex affinity mask>] [/WAIT] [/B]
[/MACHINE <x86|amd64|arm|arm64>][command/program] [parameters]
"title" Title to display in window title bar.
path Starting directory.
B Start application without creating a new window. The
application has ^C handling ignored. Unless the application
enables ^C processing, ^Break is the only way to interrupt
the application.
I The new environment will be the original environment passed
to the cmd.exe and not the current environment.
MIN Start window minimized.
MAX Start window maximized.
SEPARATE Start 16-bit Windows program in separate memory space.
SHARED Start 16-bit Windows program in shared memory space.
LOW Start application in the IDLE priority class.
NORMAL Start application in the NORMAL priority class.
HIGH Start application in the HIGH priority class.
REALTIME Start application in the REALTIME priority class.
ABOVENORMAL Start application in the ABOVENORMAL priority class.
BELOWNORMAL Start application in the BELOWNORMAL priority class.
NODE Specifies the preferred Non-Uniform Memory Architecture (NUMA)
node as a decimal integer.
AFFINITY Specifies the processor affinity mask as a hexadecimal number.
The process is restricted to running on these processors.
The affinity mask is interpreted differently when /AFFINITY and
/NODE are combined. Specify the affinity mask as if the NUMA
node's processor mask is right shifted to begin at bit zero.
The process is restricted to running on those processors in
common between the specified affinity mask and the NUMA node.
If no processors are in common, the process is restricted to
running on the specified NUMA node.
WAIT Start application and wait for it to terminate.
MACHINE Specifies the machine architecture of the application process.
command/program
If it is an internal cmd command or a batch file then
the command processor is run with the /K switch to cmd.exe.
This means that the window will remain after the command
has been run.
If it is not an internal cmd command or batch file then
it is a program and will run as either a windowed application
or a console application.
parameters These are the parameters passed to the command/program.
NOTE: The SEPARATE and SHARED options are not supported on 64-bit platforms.
Specifying /NODE allows processes to be created in a way that leverages memory
locality on NUMA systems. For example, two processes that communicate with
each other heavily through shared memory can be created to share the same
preferred NUMA node in order to minimize memory latencies. They allocate
memory from the same NUMA node when possible, and they are free to run on
processors outside the specified node.
start /NODE 1 application1.exe
start /NODE 1 application2.exe
These two processes can be further constrained to run on specific processors
within the same NUMA node. In the following example, application1 runs on the
low-order two processors of the node, while application2 runs on the next two
processors of the node. This example assumes the specified node has at least
four logical processors. Note that the node number can be changed to any valid
node number for that computer without having to change the affinity mask.
start /NODE 1 /AFFINITY 0x3 application1.exe
start /NODE 1 /AFFINITY 0xc application2.exe
If Command Extensions are enabled, external command invocation
through the command line or the START command changes as follows:
non-executable files may be invoked through their file association just
by typing the name of the file as a command. (e.g. WORD.DOC would
launch the application associated with the .DOC file extension).
See the ASSOC and FTYPE commands for how to create these
associations from within a command script.
When executing an application that is a 32-bit GUI application, CMD.EXE
does not wait for the application to terminate before returning to
the command prompt. This new behavior does NOT occur if executing
within a command script.
When executing a command line whose first token is the string "CMD "
without an extension or path qualifier, then "CMD" is replaced with
the value of the COMSPEC variable. This prevents picking up CMD.EXE
from the current directory.
When executing a command line whose first token does NOT contain an
extension, then CMD.EXE uses the value of the PATHEXT
environment variable to determine which extensions to look for
and in what order. The default value for the PATHEXT variable
is:
.COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD
Notice the syntax is the same as the PATH variable, with
semicolons separating the different elements.
When searching for an executable, if there is no match on any extension,
then looks to see if the name matches a directory name. If it does, the
START command launches the Explorer on that path. If done from the
command line, it is the equivalent to doing a CD /D to that path.
"""
@_help
class CMD:
R"""
Starts a new instance of the Windows command interpreter
CMD [/A | /U] [/Q] [/D] [/E:ON | /E:OFF] [/F:ON | /F:OFF] [/V:ON | /V:OFF]
[[/S] [/C | /K] string]
/C Carries out the command specified by string and then terminates
/K Carries out the command specified by string but remains
/S Modifies the treatment of string after /C or /K (see below)
/Q Turns echo off
/D Disable execution of AutoRun commands from registry (see below)
/A Causes the output of internal commands to a pipe or file to be ANSI
/U Causes the output of internal commands to a pipe or file to be
Unicode
/T:fg Sets the foreground/background colors (see COLOR /? for more info)
/E:ON Enable command extensions (see below)
/E:OFF Disable command extensions (see below)
/F:ON Enable file and directory name completion characters (see below)
/F:OFF Disable file and directory name completion characters (see below)
/V:ON Enable delayed environment variable expansion using ! as the
delimiter. For example, /V:ON would allow !var! to expand the
variable var at execution time. The var syntax expands variables
at input time, which is quite a different thing when inside of a FOR
loop.
/V:OFF Disable delayed environment expansion.
Note that multiple commands separated by the command separator '&&'
are accepted for string if surrounded by quotes. Also, for compatibility
reasons, /X is the same as /E:ON, /Y is the same as /E:OFF and /R is the
same as /C. Any other switches are ignored.
If /C or /K is specified, then the remainder of the command line after
the switch is processed as a command line, where the following logic is
used to process quote (") characters:
1. If all of the following conditions are met, then quote characters
on the command line are preserved:
- no /S switch
- exactly two quote characters
- no special characters between the two quote characters,
where special is one of: &<>()@^|
- there are one or more whitespace characters between the
two quote characters
- the string between the two quote characters is the name
of an executable file.
2. Otherwise, old behavior is to see if the first character is
a quote character and if so, strip the leading character and
remove the last quote character on the command line, preserving
any text after the last quote character.
If /D was NOT specified on the command line, then when CMD.EXE starts, it
looks for the following REG_SZ/REG_EXPAND_SZ registry variables, and if
either or both are present, they are executed first.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\AutoRun
and/or
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\AutoRun
Command Extensions are enabled by default. You may also disable
extensions for a particular invocation by using the /E:OFF switch. You
can enable or disable extensions for all invocations of CMD.EXE on a
machine and/or user logon session by setting either or both of the
following REG_DWORD values in the registry using REGEDIT.EXE:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\EnableExtensions
and/or
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\EnableExtensions
to either 0x1 or 0x0. The user specific setting takes precedence over
the machine setting. The command line switches take precedence over the
registry settings.
In a batch file, the SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS or DISABLEEXTENSIONS arguments
takes precedence over the /E:ON or /E:OFF switch. See SETLOCAL /? for details.
The command extensions involve changes and/or additions to the following
commands:
DEL or ERASE
COLOR
CD or CHDIR
MD or MKDIR
PROMPT
PUSHD
POPD
SET
SETLOCAL
ENDLOCAL
IF
FOR
CALL
SHIFT
GOTO
START (also includes changes to external command invocation)
ASSOC
FTYPE
To get specific details, type commandname /? to view the specifics.
Delayed environment variable expansion is NOT enabled by default. You
can enable or disable delayed environment variable expansion for a
particular invocation of CMD.EXE with the /V:ON or /V:OFF switch. You
can enable or disable delayed expansion for all invocations of CMD.EXE on a
machine and/or user logon session by setting either or both of the
following REG_DWORD values in the registry using REGEDIT.EXE:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\DelayedExpansion
and/or
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\DelayedExpansion
to either 0x1 or 0x0. The user specific setting takes precedence over
the machine setting. The command line switches take precedence over the
registry settings.
In a batch file the SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION or DISABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
arguments takes precedence over the /V:ON or /V:OFF switch. See SETLOCAL /?
for details.
If delayed environment variable expansion is enabled, then the exclamation
character can be used to substitute the value of an environment variable
at execution time.
You can enable or disable file name completion for a particular
invocation of CMD.EXE with the /F:ON or /F:OFF switch. You can enable
or disable completion for all invocations of CMD.EXE on a machine and/or
user logon session by setting either or both of the following REG_DWORD
values in the registry using REGEDIT.EXE:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\CompletionChar
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\PathCompletionChar
and/or
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\CompletionChar
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\PathCompletionChar
with the hex value of a control character to use for a particular
function (e.g. 0x4 is Ctrl-D and 0x6 is Ctrl-F). The user specific
settings take precedence over the machine settings. The command line
switches take precedence over the registry settings.
If completion is enabled with the /F:ON switch, the two control
characters used are Ctrl-D for directory name completion and Ctrl-F for
file name completion. To disable a particular completion character in
the registry, use the value for space (0x20) as it is not a valid
control character.
Completion is invoked when you type either of the two control
characters. The completion function takes the path string to the left
of the cursor appends a wild card character to it if none is already
present and builds up a list of paths that match. It then displays the
first matching path. If no paths match, it just beeps and leaves the
display alone. Thereafter, repeated pressing of the same control
character will cycle through the list of matching paths. Pressing the
Shift key with the control character will move through the list
backwards. If you edit the line in any way and press the control
character again, the saved list of matching paths is discarded and a new
one generated. The same occurs if you switch between file and directory
name completion. The only difference between the two control characters
is the file completion character matches both file and directory names,
while the directory completion character only matches directory names.
If file completion is used on any of the built in directory commands
(CD, MD or RD) then directory completion is assumed.
The completion code deals correctly with file names that contain spaces
or other special characters by placing quotes around the matching path.
Also, if you back up, then invoke completion from within a line, the
text to the right of the cursor at the point completion was invoked is
discarded.
The special characters that require quotes are:
<space>
&()[]{}^=;!'+,`~
"""
@_help
class HELP:
"""
For more information on a specific command, type HELP command-name
ASSOC Displays or modifies file extension associations.
ATTRIB Displays or changes file attributes.
BREAK Sets or clears extended CTRL+C checking.
BCDEDIT Sets properties in boot database to control boot loading.
CACLS Displays or modifies access control lists (ACLs) of files.
CALL Calls one batch program from another.
CD Displays the name of or changes the current directory.
CHCP Displays or sets the active code page number.
CHDIR Displays the name of or changes the current directory.
CHKDSK Checks a disk and displays a status report.
CHKNTFS Displays or modifies the checking of disk at boot time.
CLS Clears the screen.
CMD Starts a new instance of the Windows command interpreter.
COLOR Sets the default console foreground and background colors.
COMP Compares the contents of two files or sets of files.
COMPACT Displays or alters the compression of files on NTFS partitions.
CONVERT Converts FAT volumes to NTFS. You cannot convert the
current drive.
COPY Copies one or more files to another location.
DATE Displays or sets the date.
DEL Deletes one or more files.
DIR Displays a list of files and subdirectories in a directory.
DISKPART Displays or configures Disk Partition properties.
DOSKEY Edits command lines, recalls Windows commands, and\x20
creates macros.
DRIVERQUERY Displays current device driver status and properties.
ECHO Displays messages, or turns command echoing on or off.
ENDLOCAL Ends localization of environment changes in a batch file.
ERASE Deletes one or more files.
EXIT Quits the CMD.EXE program (command interpreter).
FC Compares two files or sets of files, and displays the\x20
differences between them.
FIND Searches for a text string in a file or files.
FINDSTR Searches for strings in files.
FOR Runs a specified command for each file in a set of files.
FORMAT Formats a disk for use with Windows.
FSUTIL Displays or configures the file system properties.
FTYPE Displays or modifies file types used in file extension\x20
associations.
GOTO Directs the Windows command interpreter to a labeled line in\x20
a batch program.
GPRESULT Displays Group Policy information for machine or user.
HELP Provides Help information for Windows commands.
ICACLS Display, modify, backup, or restore ACLs for files and\x20
directories.
IF Performs conditional processing in batch programs.
LABEL Creates, changes, or deletes the volume label of a disk.
MD Creates a directory.
MKDIR Creates a directory.
MKLINK Creates Symbolic Links and Hard Links
MODE Configures a system device.
MORE Displays output one screen at a time.
MOVE Moves one or more files from one directory to another\x20
directory.
OPENFILES Displays files opened by remote users for a file share.
PATH Displays or sets a search path for executable files.
PAUSE Suspends processing of a batch file and displays a message.
POPD Restores the previous value of the current directory saved by\x20
PUSHD.
PRINT Prints a text file.
PROMPT Changes the Windows command prompt.
PUSHD Saves the current directory then changes it.
RD Removes a directory.
RECOVER Recovers readable information from a bad or defective disk.
REM Records comments (remarks) in batch files or CONFIG.SYS.
REN Renames a file or files.
RENAME Renames a file or files.
REPLACE Replaces files.
RMDIR Removes a directory.
ROBOCOPY Advanced utility to copy files and directory trees
SET Displays, sets, or removes Windows environment variables.
SETLOCAL Begins localization of environment changes in a batch file.
SC Displays or configures services (background processes).
SCHTASKS Schedules commands and programs to run on a computer.
SHIFT Shifts the position of replaceable parameters in batch files.
SHUTDOWN Allows proper local or remote shutdown of machine.
SORT Sorts input.
START Starts a separate window to run a specified program or command.
SUBST Associates a path with a drive letter.
SYSTEMINFO Displays machine specific properties and configuration.
TASKLIST Displays all currently running tasks including services.
TASKKILL Kill or stop a running process or application.
TIME Displays or sets the system time.
TITLE Sets the window title for a CMD.EXE session.
TREE Graphically displays the directory structure of a drive or\x20
path.
TYPE Displays the contents of a text file.
VER Displays the Windows version.
VERIFY Tells Windows whether to verify that your files are written
correctly to a disk.
VOL Displays a disk volume label and serial number.
XCOPY Copies files and directory trees.
WMIC Displays WMI information inside interactive command shell.
For more information on tools see the command-line reference in the online help.
"""