Unable to change directory in command line - command-line

I'm on c drive in command line
when I want to change the directory to D drive using :
cd /C D:\Riot Games
I get an error also with cmder

Assuming you're using Windows, and you're using the standard cmd.exe for your command line, you should be quoting your path arguments for safety even though the docs will tell you it isn't strictly necessary since the command doesn't treat spaces as delimiters. The correct syntax is simply:
cd "D:\Riot Games"
There is also no /C argument to the cd command. You may have meant to use:
cd /D "D:\Riot Games"
to change the current drive in addition to changing the current directory, but whether that's actually necessary isn't clear from your example.

On Windows CMD, you first need to switch to your other drive by just typing D:, then you can change directory by using the cd "Riot Games"

Related

How can I return to the previous directory in windows command prompt?

I often want to return to the previous directory I was just in in cmd.exe, but windows does not have the "cd -" functionality of Unix. Also typing cd ../../.. is a lot of typing.
Is there a faster way to go up several directory levels?
And ideally return back afterwards?
This worked for me in powershell
cd ..
Steps:
pushd . (Keep old folder path on the stack)
cd ..\.. (Move to the folder whare you like to)
popd (Pop it from the stack. Meaning, Come back to the old folder)
On Windows CMD, I got used to using pushd and popd. Before changing directory I use pushd . to put the current directory on the stack, and then I use cd to move elsewhere. You can run pushd as often as you like, each time the specified directory goes on the stack. You can then CD to whatever directory, or directories , that you want. It does not matter how many times you run CD. When ready to return , I use popd to return to whatever directory is on top of the stack. This is suitable for simple use cases and is handy, as long as you remember to push a directory on the stack before using CD.
Run cmd.exe using the /k switch and a starting batch file that invokes doskey to use an enhanced versions of the cd command.
Here is a simple batch file to change directories to the first parameter (%1) passed in, and to remember the initial directory by calling pushd %1.
md_autoruns.cmd:
#echo off
cd %1
pushd %1
title aliases active
cls
%SystemRoot%\System32\doskey.exe /macrofile=c:\tools\aliases
We will also need a small helper batch file to remember the directory changes and to ignore changes to the same directory:
mycd.bat:
#echo off
if '%*'=='' cd & exit /b
if '%*'=='-' (
cd /d %OLDPWD%
set OLDPWD="%cd%"
) else (
cd /d %*
if not errorlevel 1 set OLDPWD="%cd%"
)
And a small aliases file showing what to do to make it all work:
aliases:
cd=C:\tools\mycd.bat $*
cd\=c:\tools\mycd.bat ..
A:=c:\tools\mycd.bat A:
B:=c:\tools\mycd.bat B:
C:=c:\tools\mycd.bat C:
...
Z:=c:\tools\mycd.bat Z:
.=cd
..=c:\tools\mycd.bat ..
...=c:\tools\mycd.bat ..\..
....=c:\tools\mycd.bat ..\..\..
.....=c:\tools\mycd.bat ..\..\..\..
......=c:\tools\mycd.bat ..\..\..\..\..
.......=c:\tools\mycd.bat ..\..\..\..\..\..
........=c:\tools\mycd.bat ..\..\..\..\..\..\..
.........=c:\tools\mycd.bat ..\..\..\..\..\..\..\..
tools=c:\tools\mycd.bat C:\tools
wk=c:\tools\mycd.bat %WORKSPACE%
Now you can go up a directory level by typing ..
Add another . for each level you want to go up.
When you want to go back, type cd - and you will be back where you started.
Aliases to jump to directories like wk or tools (shown above) swiftly take you from location to location, are easy to create, and can really help if you work in the command line frequently.
You could use the command:
cd ..\ -> To go up one level
cd ..\..\ -> To go up two levels
Note the space after cd

Running a script in bash

I have a script in one of my application folders.Usually I just cd into that locatin in Unix box and run the script e.g.
UNIX> cd My\Folder\
My\Folder> MyScript
This prints the required result.
I am not sure how do I do this in Bash script.I have done the following
#!/bin/bash
mydir=My\Folder\
cd $mydir
echo $(pwd)
This basically puts me in the right folder to run the required script . But I am not sure how to run the script in the code?
If you can call MyScript (as opposed to ./MyScript), obviously the current directory (".") is part of your PATH. (Which, by the way, isn't a good idea.)
That means you can call MyScript in your script just like that:
#!/bin/bash
mydir=My/Folder/
cd $mydir
echo $(pwd)
MyScript
As I said, ./MyScript would be better (not as ambiguous). See Michael Wild's comment about directory separators.
Generally speaking, Bash considers everything that does not resolve to a builtin keyword (like if, while, do etc.) as a call to an executable or script (*) located somewhere in your PATH. It will check each directory in the PATH, in turn, for a so-named executable / script, and execute the first one it finds (which might or might not be the MyScript you are intending to run). That's why specifying that you mean the very MyScript in this directory (./) is the better choice.
(*): Unless, of course, there is a function of that name defined.
#!/bin/bash
mydir=My/Folder/
cd $mydir
echo $(pwd)
MyScript
I would rather put the name in quotes. This makes it easier to read and save against mistakes.
#!/bin/bash
mydir="My Folder"
cd "$mydir"
echo $(pwd)
./MyScript
Your nickname says it all ;-)
When a command is entered at the prompt that doesn't contain a /, Bash first checks whether it is a alias or a function. Then it checks whether it is a built-in command, and only then it starts searching on the PATH. This is a shell variable that contains a list of directories to search for commands. It appears that in your case . (i.e. the current directory) is in the PATH, which is generally considered to be a pretty bad idea.
If the command contains a /, no look-up in the PATH is performed. Instead an exact match is required. If starting with a / it is an absolute path, and the file must exist. Otherwise it is a relative path, and the file must exist relative to the current working directory.
So, you have two acceptable options:
Put your script in some directory that is on your PATH. Alternatively, add the directory containing the script to the PATH variable.
Use an absolute or relative path to invoke your script.

Open file by name only, no extension

How can I open any type of file in a .bat by providing only a name of the file, no extension?
I want to let windows decide the application to use.
example:
%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe E:\SomeFolder\
%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe E:\SomeFolder\file1
Use START command:
start "Any title" E:\SomeFolder\
start "Any title" E:\SomeFolder\file1
Taken from Start help:
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 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.
Note that previous description imply that the pure filename must also execute the right application, with no START command. To pick up the first file with a given name:
for %%f in (name.*) do set "filename=%%f" & goto continue
:continue
... and to execute it:
%filename%
PS - Note that you want "to let windows decide the application to use", but in your example you explicitly select %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe as the application to use. So?

change directory in batch file using variable

Here's the question:
set Pathname = C:\Program Files
cd %Pathname%
pause
The above doesn't change the directory, as I would expect. Can anybody please tell me why?
The set statement doesn't treat spaces the way you expect; your variable is really named Pathname[space] and is equal to [space]C:\Program Files.
Remove the spaces from both sides of the = sign, and put the value in double quotes:
set Pathname="C:\Program Files"
Also, if your command prompt is not open to C:\, then using cd alone can't change drives.
Use
cd /d %Pathname%
or
pushd %Pathname%
instead.
simple way to do this... here are the example
cd program files
cd poweriso
piso mount D:\<Filename.iso> <Virtual Drive>
Pause
this will mount the ISO image to the specific drive...use

Tool for commandline "bookmarks" on windows?

Im searching a tool which allows me to specify some folders as "bookmarks" and than access them on the commandline (on Windows XP) via a keyword. Something like:
C:\> go home
D:\profiles\user\home\> go svn-project1
D:\projects\project1\svn\branch\src\>
I'm currently using a bunch of batch files, but editing them by hand is a daunting task. On Linux there is cdargs or shell bookmarks but I haven't found something on windows.
Thanks for the Powershell suggestion, but I'm not allowed to install it on my box at work, so it should be a "classic" cmd.exe solution.
What you are looking for is called DOSKEY
You can use the doskey command to create macros in the command interpreter. For example:
doskey mcd=mkdir "$*"$Tpushd "$*"
creates a new command "mcd" that creates a new directory and then changes to that directory (I prefer "pushd" to "cd" in this case because it lets me use "popd" later to go back to where I was before)
The $* will be replaced with the remainder of the command line after the macro, and the $T is used to delimit the two different commands that I want to evaluate. If I typed:
mcd foo/bar
at the command line, it would be equivalent to:
mkdir "foo/bar"&pushd "foo/bar"
The next step is to create a file that contains a set of macros which you can then import by using the /macrofile switch. I have a file (c:\tools\doskey.macros) which defines the commands that I regularly use. Each macro should be specified on a line with the same syntax as above.
But you don't want to have to manually import your macros every time you launch a new command interpreter, to make it happen automatically, just open up the registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\AutoRun and set the value to be doskey /macrofile "c:\tools\doskey.macro". Doing this will make sure that your macros are automatically predefined every time you start a new interpreter.
Extra thoughts:
- If you want to do other things in AutoRun (like set environment parameters), you can delimit the commands with the ampersand. Mine looks like: set root=c:\SomeDir&doskey /macrofile "c:\tools\doskey.macros"
- If you prefer that your AutoRun settings be set per-user, you can use the HKCU node instead of HKLM.
- You can also use doskey to control things like the size of the command history.
- I like to end all of my navigation macros with \$* so that I can chain things together
- Be careful to add quotes as appropriate in your macros if you want to be able to handle paths with spaces in them.
I was looking for this exact functionality, for simple cases. Couldn't find a solution, so I made one myself:
#ECHO OFF
REM Source found on https://github.com/DieterDePaepe/windows-scripts
REM Please share any improvements made!
REM Folder where all links will end up
set WARP_REPO=%USERPROFILE%\.warp
IF [%1]==[/?] GOTO :help
IF [%1]==[--help] GOTO :help
IF [%1]==[/create] GOTO :create
IF [%1]==[/remove] GOTO :remove
IF [%1]==[/list] GOTO :list
set /p WARP_DIR=<%WARP_REPO%\%1
cd %WARP_DIR%
GOTO :end
:create
IF [%2]==[] (
ECHO Missing name for bookmark
GOTO :EOF
)
if not exist %WARP_REPO%\NUL mkdir %WARP_REPO%
ECHO %cd% > %WARP_REPO%\%2
ECHO Created bookmark "%2"
GOTO :end
:list
dir %WARP_REPO% /B
GOTO :end
:remove
IF [%2]==[] (
ECHO Missing name for bookmark
GOTO :EOF
)
if not exist %WARP_REPO%\%2 (
ECHO Bookmark does not exist: %2
GOTO :EOF
)
del %WARP_REPO%\%2
GOTO :end
:help
ECHO Create or navigate to folder bookmarks.
ECHO.
ECHO warp /? Display this help
ECHO warp [bookmark] Navigate to existing bookmark
ECHO warp /remove [bookmark] Remove an existing bookmark
ECHO warp /create [bookmark] Navigate to existing bookmark
ECHO warp /list List existing bookmarks
ECHO.
:end
You can list, create and delete bookmarks. The bookmarks are stored in text files in a folder in your user directory.
Usage (copied from current version):
A folder bookmarker for use in the terminal.
c:\Temp>warp /create temp # Create a new bookmark
Created bookmark "temp"
c:\Temp>cd c:\Users\Public # Go somewhere else
c:\Users\Public>warp temp # Go to the stored bookmark
c:\Temp>
Every warp uses a pushd command, so you can trace back your steps using popd.
c:\Users\Public>warp temp
c:\Temp>popd
c:\Users\Public>
Open a folder of a bookmark in explorer using warp /window <bookmark>.
List all available options using warp /?.
With just a Batch file, try this... (save as filename "go.bat")
#echo off
set BookMarkFolder=c:\data\cline\bookmarks\
if exist %BookMarkFolder%%1.lnk start %BookMarkFolder%%1.lnk
if exist %BookMarkFolder%%1.bat start %BookMarkFolder%%1.bat
if exist %BookMarkFolder%%1.vbs start %BookMarkFolder%%1.vbs
if exist %BookMarkFolder%%1.URL start %BookMarkFolder%%1.URL
Any shortcuts, batch files, VBS Scripts or Internet shortcuts you put in your bookmark folder (in this case "c:\data\cline\bookmarks\" can then be opened / accessed by typing "go bookmarkname"
e.g. I have a bookmark called "stack.url". Typing go stack takes me straight to this page.
You may also want to investigate Launchy
With PowerShell you could add the folders as variables in your profile.ps1 file, like:
$vids="C:\Users\mabster\Videos"
Then, like Unix, you can just refer to the variables in your commands:
cd $vids
Having a list of variable assignments in the one ps1 file is probably easier than maintaining separate batch files.
Another alternative approach you may want to consider could be to have a folder that contains symlinks to each of your projects or frequently-used directories. So you can do something like
cd \go\svn-project-1
cd \go\my-douments
Symlinks can be made on a NTFS disk using the Junction tool
Without Powershell you can do it like this:
C:\>set DOOMED=c:\windows
C:\>cd %DOOMED%
C:\WINDOWS>
Crono wrote:
Are Environment variables defined via "set" not meant for the current session only? Can I persist them?
They are set for the current process, and by default inherited by any process that it creates. They are not persisted to the registry. Their scope can be limited in cmd scripts with "setlocal" (and "endlocal").
Environment variables?
set home=D:\profiles\user\home
set svn-project1=D:\projects\project1\svn\branch\src
cd %home%
On Unix I use this along with popd/pushd/cd - all the time.