like we have %windir% which returns the C;\windows , do we have any command that returns only the operating system drive letter ('C') ?
I tried the command "label" but it returns more than the label info..
WMIC.exe allows you to make WMI queries from the command line.
wmic os get systemdrive
will tell you the same thing as %SystemDrive%, though you can also use it for InstallDate, SystemDirectory (i.e. %WINDIR%\System32, though I don't recall ever having seen a machine with a different name for that directory), LastBootupTime, etc.
The output isn't necessarily easy to parse from a script, but if you just want to see the info, it's very useful.
On windows, try these:
1. %SystemDrive%
2. %HOMEDRIVE%
The first gives you the drive letter that holds your system files, the second gives you drive letter that holds your documents.
Related
I have been working on a project that uses a program called TeraTerm to send commands to a TV via a serial port. I have discovered that when I open the program manually after a reboot, I have to open the correct port and then send the .dat command file several times before it actually takes (Turns off the TV).
The commands I am using are from this page.
Anyway, I ran the command
TTERMPRO /C=7 /DS /FD=C:\Commands\TurnOffTest3.dat /FD=C:\Commands\TurnOffTest3.dat /FD=C:\Commands\TurnOffTest3.dat
hoping that it would allow me to send the file multiple times. The TeraTerm window did open as usual, but the file was either not sent or had no effect.
There is a very high likelyhood that I am sending the commands incorrectly, as I am very new to the command prompt itself. Is there a way that I can call the command to send a file multiple times? If I am not interpreting the interface given on the website correctly or even if the way I am using the commands is just flat out wrong, any and all advice is welcome.
Side note: yes, I am sure that the command file that I am sending is the correct one because when I send the file manually (i. e. use the GUI) the TV turns off as expected.
EDIT: I have tried sending the file with and without quotes in its name.
for /L %G in (1,1,3) do TTERMPRO …
Read more in FOR command:
If you are using the FOR command at the command line rather than
in a batch program, use just one percent sign: %G instead of
%%G.
Noticed in help information about system commands for /? as well: 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.
==> 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.
…
Further reading in Syntax: Escape Characters, Delimiters and Quotes
Suppose you have an .EXE and you want to check if it has Command-Line Options. How can one know if the .EXE has this ability. In my case I know that Nir Sofers WebBrowserPassView.exe has the ability to start it via cmd.exe and WebBrowserPassView.exe /stext output.txt. But how can I find out if I don't know?
The easiest way would be to use use ProcessExplorer but it would still require some searching.
Make sure your exe is running and open ProcessExplorer.
In ProcessExplorer find the name of your binary file and double click it to show properties.
Click the Strings tab.
Search down the list of string found in the binary file. Most strings will be garbage so they can be ignored. Search for anything that might possibly resemble a command line switch.
Test this switch from the command line and see if it does anything.
Note that it might be your binary simply has no command line switches.
For reference here is the above steps applied to the Chrome executable. The command line switches accepted by Chrome can be seen in the list:
Invoke it from the shell, with an argument like /? or --help. Those are the usual help switches.
Sysinternals has another tool you could use, Strings.exe
Example:
strings.exe c:\windows\system32\wuauclt.exe > %temp%\wuauclt_strings.txt && %temp%\wuauclt_strings.txt
Just use IDA PRO (https://www.hex-rays.com/products/ida/index.shtml) to disassemble the file, and search for some known command line option (using Search...Text) - in that section you will then typically see all the command line options - for the program (LIB2NIST.exe) in the screenshot below, for example, it shows a documented command line option (/COM2TAG) but also some undocumented ones, like /L. Hope this helps?
Really this is an extension to Marcin's answer.
But you could also try passing "rubbish" arguments to see if you get any errors back. Getting any response from the executable directly in the shell will mean that it is likely looking at the arguments you're passing, with an error response being close to a guarantee that it is.
Failing that you might have to directly ask the publishers/creators/owners... sniffing the binaries yourself just seems like far too much work for an end-user.
Unless the writer of the executable has specifically provided a way for you to display a list of all the command line switches that it offers, then there is no way of doing this.
As Marcin suggests, the typical switches for displaying all of the options are either /? or /help (some applications might prefer the Unix-style syntax, -? and -help, respectively). But those are just a common convention.
If those don't work, you're out of luck. You'll need to check the documentation for the application, or perhaps try decompiling the executable (if you know what you're looking for).
This is what I get from console on Windows 10:
C:\>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.
All I'm looking for is a way to get the current drive letter that I am currently running the powershell script from.
I know I can get the current path using Get-Location but is there a way to extract the drive letter without doing some kind of substring operation?
Yes, you can get the drive letter without string operations:
(get-location).Drive.Name
Remember, that PowerShell seldom returns strings, but rich objects. You can always examine your further options from a result by using get-member.
Also note, that if you are not on the file system provider, the Name might not be a one-character string.
Edit:
As per x0n's comment below, here is a shorthand version:
$pwd.drive.name
I am new to UNIX and when I was reading a book about UNIX, I came across following two problems that I didn't understand. I would really appreciate your help.
1) Look up the man page for the file command, and then use it on all files in the /dev directory. Can you group these files into two categories?
2) Run the tty command, and note the device name of your terminal. Now use this device name(/dev/pst/6) in the command cp /etc/passwd /dev/pts/6. what do you observe?
Fair question really... it's so easy for us to take so much for granted.
To read the manual page for the command called file, just type...
man file
...which will present a lot of information that will probably be quite confusing, but you'll get used to this stuff pretty quick if you keep at it. Crucially, file is a program that tries to categorise the files you ask it to. If you type...
file /dev/*
...that will do what the question asked, and invoke file with a list of the files in the /dev/ subdirectory. The list is actually prepared by the "shell" program that you're typing into, which then executes the file program and passes it the list. file then outputs some description of the files. On my computer, and where [SHELL-PROMPT] will be different on your computer, I typed file /dev/* and part of the output looked like:
[SHELL-PROMPT] file /dev/*
...lots of stuff...
/dev/cevt: character special (255/176)
/dev/console: character special (5/1)
/dev/core: symbolic link to `/proc/kcore'
/dev/cpqci: character special (10/209)
/dev/cpqhealth: directory
/dev/crom: character special (255/180)
...lots of stuff...
/dev/md8: block special (9/8)
/dev/md9: block special (9/9)
/dev/mem: character special (1/1)
/dev/mice: character special (13/63)
/dev/mouse0: character special (13/32)
/dev/mptctl: character special (10/220)
/dev/net: directory
/dev/nflog: character special (36/5)
/dev/null: character special (1/3)
/dev/parport0: character special (99/0)
...lots of stuff...
There's a filesystem entry for each directory/file combination (known as a path) in the left column, and file is describing the content in the right. Those descriptions may not make a lot of sense, but you can see that some patterns: some entries are "block special", others "character special", some are directory which implies you may find more files underneath (i.e. ls /dev/net/*). The numbers after "special" files are just operating system identifiers to differentiate the files mentioned. The import of this is that input and output from some devices connected to the computer is being made possible as if the device was a file in the filesystem. That "file" abstraction is being used as a general model for input and output. So, /dev/tty for example is tty - or terminal - device. Any data you try to read from there will actually be taken from the keyboard you're using to type into the shell (in the simple case), and anything you write there will become visible in the same terminal you're typing into. /dev/null is another interesting one: you can read and write from it, but it's an imaginary thing that never actually provides data (just indicates and End-of-File condition, and throws away any data written into it). You can keep reading from /dev/random and it will produce random values each time... good if you need random numbers or file content for encryption or some kind of statistical work.
2) Run the tty command, and note the
device name of your terminal. Now use
this device name(/dev/pst/6) in the
command cp /etc/passwd /dev/pts/6.
what do you observe?
By typing "tty" you can ask for the device representing your terminal...
[SHELL-PROMPT] tty
/dev/pts/11
But, I just said /dev/tty is another name for the same thing, so there's normally no need to use the "tty" program to find this more specific name. Still, if you create a couple terminal windows to your host, and type tty in each, you will see that each shell is connected to a different pseudo-terminal device. Still, each shell - and program run from the shell - can by default also refer to its own terminal input and output device as /dev/tty... it's a convenient context-sensitive name. The command...
cp /etc/passwd /dev/pts/6
...where you replace 6 with whatever your tty program really reported (e.g. 11 in my case), does the same thing as...
cp /etc/passwd /dev/tty
...it just reads the contents of the file /etc/passwd and writes them out on your screen. Now, the problem is that /etc/password looks like a lot of unintelligible junk to the average person - it's no wonder you couldn't make sense of what was happening. Try this instead...
echo "i said hello" > /tmp/hello.file
cp /tmp/hello.file /dev/tty
...and you'll see how to direct some specific, recognisable content into a new file (in this case putting it in the tmp "temporary" directory (the file will disappear when you reboot your PC), then copying that file content back to your screen.
(If you have logged on in two terminal windows, you can even go into one shell and copy the file to the /dev/pts/NN device reported by the other shell, effectively sending a message to the other window. You can even bypass the file and echo 'boo' > /dev/tty/NN. You'll only have permissions to do this if the same userid is logged into both windows.)
I have both Sybase and MSFT SQL Servers installed. There is a time when Sybase interferes with MS SQL because they have they have some overlapping commands.
So, I need two scripts:
A) When runs, script A backs up the current path, grabs all paths that contain sybase or SYBASE or SyBASE (you get the point) in them and move them all at the very end of the path, while preserving the order.
B) When it runs, script B restores the path from back-up.
Both script a and script b should affect the path immediately. So, if a.bat that calls patha.ps1, pathb.ps1 looks like so:
#REM Old path here
call patha.ps1
#REM At this point the effective path should be different.
call pathb.ps1
#REM Effective old path again
Please let me know if this does not make sense. I am not sure if call command is the best one to use.
I have never used P.S. before. I can try to formulate the same thing in Python (I know S.O. users tend to ask for "What have you tried so far"). Well, at this point I am VERY slow at writing anything in Power Shell language.
Please help.
First of all: call will be of no use here as you are apparently writing a batch file and PowerShell scripts have no association to run them by default. call is for batch files or subroutines.
Secondly, any PowerShell script you call from a batch file cannot change environment variables of the caller's environment. That's a fundamental property of how processes behave and since you are calling another process, this is never going to work.
I'm not so sure why you are even using a batch file here in the first place if you have PowerShell. You might just as well solve this in PowerShell completely.
However, what I get from your problem is that the best way to resolve this is probably the following: Create two batch files that each set the PATH appropriately. You can probably leave out both the MSSQL and Sybase paths from your usual PATH and add them solely in the batch files. Then create shortcuts to
cmd /k set_mssql_path.cmd
and
cmd /k set_sybase_path.cmd
each of which now is a shortcut to a shell to work with the appropriate database's tools. This is how the Visual Studio Command Prompt works and it's probably the cleanest solution you have. You can use the color and prompt commands in those batches to make the two different shells distinct so you always know what environment you have. For example the following two lines will color the console white on blue and set a prompt indicating MSSQL:
color 1f
prompt MSSQL$S$P$G
This can be quite handy, actually.
Generally, trying to rearrange the PATH environment variable isn't exactly easy. While you could trivially split at a ; this will fail for paths that itself contain a semicolon (and which need to be quoted then). Even in PowerShell this will take a while to get right so I think creating shortcuts specific to the tools is probably the nicest way to deal with this.