Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!chaos.utexas.edu!solomon
From: solomon@chaos.utexas.edu (Thomas Solomon)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: ms-sh and command.com
Message-ID: <41769@ut-emx.uucp>
Date: 22 Dec 90 16:37:35 GMT
References: <1990Dec21.231825.13788@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu>
Sender: news@ut-emx.uucp
Reply-To: solomon@chaos.utexas.edu
Organization: University of Texas at Austin, Center for Nonlinear Dynamics
Lines: 33

In article <1990Dec21.231825.13788@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu> kxb@math.ksu.edu (Karl Buck) writes:
>I cannot seem to get the standard commands such as del, copy, etc to run
>while in ms_sh. I've set comspec=command.com. What all needs to be to be done
>to get these standard commands? Thanks.
>--

I had the same problems when I was setting up ms_sh on my pc.  The problem
here is with "internal" DOS commands that don't have an .exe or .com
file in the /DOS directory, such as del, copy, dir, etc.  You can run
these at any time by spawning a DOS shell with the appropriate command.
For example, to copy some files, you would type

     command /c copy [source files] [destination]

In practice, it becomes a pain to have to type "command /c" in front
of every internal DOS command that you want.  I have gotten around this
nuisance by defining "aliases" (actually these are shell variables)
for the internal DOS commands.  For example, type

     copy='command /c copy'

After typing this, the shell variable $copy will behave just like the
normal DOS copy command.  Just type

     $copy [source] [destination]

(and don't forget the $).  I put these 'aliases' in my profile.sh
so that they will always be there.

Hope this helps.

                               Tom Solomon
                               solomon@chaos.utexas.edu