Windows Command Prompt (cmd)

• Shorthands
  • cmd = Windows Command Prompt
  • cwd = current working directory

Open cmd

• Press Win + R.
• Type in cmd and press enter!

OR

• Search for cmd in the start menu.
• Press Enter for a standard command prompt and Ctrl + Shift + Enter for an Administrator command prompt.

OR

• Press Win + X.
• Then, press C for a standard command prompt and A for an Administrator command prompt.

Current working directory (cwd)

• The location in the file system to which the cmd is currently pointing to.
• Eg: C:\Users\user_name>
• The cd command without any arguments will print the current directory.
• The full path to the current directory is stored in the %cd% variable.

Keyboard shortcuts

• Use Tab to complete file & directory names and to further iterate over files. This can be done after partially typing out the name as well. Use Shift + Tab to go back to the previous names.
• Pressing the ↑ gives you all the commands previously executed in that instance of the cmd, one by one. The ↓ can be used to go towards the recent commands.
• Use Ctrl + ←/→ to jump words.
• Use Home and End keys to jump to the beginning and end of the line respectively.

Help for any command

• <command> /? brings up a brief overview of what the command does and the options/flags that can be used with it, eg: dir /?.

Clear screen & command history

• Use cls to clear the screen of the cmd.

Stop running processes

• Ctrl + C will stop running processes (like Node.js servers, etc) in your terminal and bring back the prompt (the cwd text on the command line).

Changing directories

• cd <dir_name_or_relative/path/to/dir> to change directory.
• To go up by one level (ie, to the parent directory), use cd ...
• cd ..\.. to go up 2 directories at one time.
• Use tab to auto-complete file and folder names.
• cd \ to go to root dir.
• To change to a different drive drive_name:, eg: C:.
• Using absolute path:
  • cd drive_name:\dir_1\dir_2
  • Works only in the same drive. Switch to the particular drive to use the absolute path.

Run files on cmd

• Go the the directory and type file_name.ext.
• cmd uses the default program for that file type to open the file.

Path variable

• Type path to view the contents of the system and user path variables.
• It stores the (absolute) path (ie, directory) to certain executable files/programs.
• This helps in executing programs without going to the directory in which the executable file of the program exists.
• When a program name is typed, the cwd is checked for the executable and if it is not found, the path variable dirs are checked. If not found, an error 'program_name' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. is thrown.
• As the path variable has absolute paths, the executable name can be typed at any location that the cwd points to.
• Use set path="%path%;absolute/path/to/exe_dir" to set path temporarily for an instance of the cmd.
  Note the %path%, because omitting it will overwrite the path. Overwriting the path with set path="path/to/file" is usually a bad idea, as you will be unable to use most standard commands like more.
• GUI: Search for env in the start menu and click on the environment variables button to view and edit all environment variables.

Listing files, directories, drives and directory structure

• dir to list all files and directories in the cwd (current working directory).
• dir path\to\dir to view files in another directory without changing the cwd. (Use "" if command doesn’t work.)
• dir /a to llist hidden dirs as well.
• dir file_name.ext lists only that file.
• To list all files of a certain extension dir *.ext.
• Listing all available drives wmic logicaldisk get name.
• tree to view directory structure. tree /f to view files as well as directories.
• tree /f /a > file_name.txt to output the tree (file structure) to a file (file_name.txt).

Creating directories

• md dir_name will create a folder in the cwd, if the dir_name doesn’t already exist in the cwd.
• Use "" if the dir_name has spaces, eg: md "dir name".
• Multiple folders can be created using md dir_1 dir_2.

Deleting directories

• This will permanently delete your files. They will not be found in the ‘Recycle Bin’.
• rmdir dir_name will delete the folder from the cwd, if it is empty.
• rmdir /s dir_name will delete the folder and it’s contents from the cwd.
• Use "" if the dir_name has spaces, eg: rmdir "dir name".
• Multiple folders can be deleted using rmdir dir_1 dir_2.

Creating files

• Use type nul > file_name.ext to create an empty file in the cwd.
• Use echo "enter text here" > file_name.ext to create a file with data in it.

OR

• Use copy con file_name.ext to create a file. It will wait for input. Enter the input and hit Ctrl + Z and then the Enter key when done with the input.

OR

• Use echo. > file_name.ext to create an empty file. Note that there is no space between echo and ..

The find command

• The find command will look for a word/phrase in a file or folder.
  Eg: find "Hello" hello.txt will print all the lines with the word Hello in the file hello.txt.
• By default, the text is case sensitive (Hello is different from hello). Use the /i flag to ignore case.
  Eg: find /i "Hello" hello.txt.
• You can also tell it to search all the files in the current folder with find "Hello" *, or another folder with find "Hello" text\*.

Redirecting output

Redirect to a file

• To redirect the output of a command to a file, use the > symbol. Eg: dir > files.txt will save the output of the dir command to a file named files.txt.
  Note that if files.txt already had some data, then this will overwrite the old data.
• To write to an existing file, use the >> symbol. Eg: dir >> files.txt will append the output of the dir command to a file named files.txt.
  You can check this by running the command twice, and then viewing the contents of the file with more files.txt.
• You can use this to create a file with some content with echo "Hello, world" > hello.txt.

Redirect to another command

• Sometimes, it can be useful to use the output of one command as the input to another command. This can be achieved using pipes.
• A pipe is created using the pip character (|).
• Eg: To list all the .txt files in the current directory, use dir | find ".txt".

Editing a file

• Vim editor works in cmd. Note that Vim is not installed in Windows by default. You can install Vim from here.
• Run vim file_name.ext to start the editor in the cmd itself.
• Run vimtutor for an interactive tutorial on how to use Vim.
• Online documentation can be found here.
• Find Vim commands here.

Reading file content

• type file_name.ext prints out the contents of the file.
• more file_name.ext prints out the contents, but pauses after every page.

Copying and moving files

NOTE: Use "" for absolute paths.

• xcopy file_name.ext/source_dir destination_dir to copy the file/all the files in a folder (source_dir) to the destination_dir. This only copies the files in the source_dir, not the sub-dirs.
• To copy all files AND sub-dirs (except empty ones) of a folder (source_dir) to the destination_dir, use xcopy source_dir destination_dir /s.

OR

• copy file_to_be_copied.ext destination_dir_path to copy the file to the destination_dir.
• move file.ext/source_dir destination_dir to move files or dirs.

Renaming files

• ren <source_file.ext/source_dir_name> <new_file_name.ext/new_dir_name> to rename a file or a dir.

Deleting a file

• del file_name.txt permanently deletes the file from the cwd.

File attributes

• Attributes include ‘archived’, ‘hidden’, ‘system’, etc.
• attrib /? for overview.
• Go to directory and type attrib to view the attributes of the files in it.
• Adding attributes, eg: attrib -h +r file_name.txt.

Background and text color

• color bt (b = background color, t = text color)
• For color legend, type color /?.
• Type color to reset all colors to default.

Chaining commands

• You can chain multiple commands using &, && and ||.
• command_1 & command_2 will run command_1 and then run command_2.
• command_1 && command_2 will run command_1 and then run command_2 only if command_1 finished successfully.
• command_1 || command_2 will run command_1 and then run command_2 only if command_1 did not finish successfully.
• Running echo ^G (Typed as echo , then Ctrl + G) will cause a beep sound.
• A useful trick is to add & echo ^G after a command that you know will take a long time to complete. You can go do something else and this will alert you when the command finishes.