Ok, well maybe the subject line of this column is stretching it just a wee bit. There's no way that you can emulate more than a small fraction of Unix power at the DOS Command Prompt. But DOS has grown quite a bit since the days when it was an operating system in its own right. With pipes and redirection, a pile of commands that are roughly equivalent to their Unix counterparts (dir is to ls what type is to cat) and a little finesse, you can make your time working in DOS seem a little less like a detour through the dark ages and a little more like home.

To begin our little makeover, let's look at the typical DOS command prompt. When I open a command prompt on my Windows XP Professional laptop, I see something like this:

C:\Documents and Settings\shenry-stocker\Desktop>

Not so bad, you might be thinking, but any prompt that stretches more than halfway across MY screen is too much prompt for me. Can I change this the way I can change my prompt on a Unix system (e.g., setting PS1="\h> ")? Yes, in fact I can. For a minimalistic prompt, I like using something like this:

prompt=$G$S

This will change the DOS prompt to "> ". The $G represents the greater-than and $S is a space.

The default prompt on DOS is usually $P$G -- the current path followed by a > and you can change it back as easily:

prompt=$P$G

Many other variables can be also be used in the prompt string:

$Q  	= (equal sign)
$$ 	$ (dollar sign)
$T 	Current time
$D 	Current date
$P 	Current drive and path
$V 	Windows version number
$N 	Current drive
$G 	> (greater-than sign)
$L 	& (less-than sign)
$B 	| (pipe)
$H 	Backspace (erases previous character)
$E 	Escape code (ASCII code 27)
$_ 	Carriage return and linefeed

Some of these (such as $V) make a perfectly hideous and worthless prompt, but others can be advantageous at times -- such as $T$G$S when you're watching the clock on a Friday afternoon.

Defining Macros

To clear the screen in DOS, use the cls command. It works just like clear on Unix. And, if you don't like translating between Unix and DOS commands just to clear your screen, you can turn clear into a macro. Macros work like aliases in the Unix shells. To make clear equivalent to cls, for example, you would do this:

doskey clear=cls

Once you type this at the command prompt, you can use "clear" to clear your screen instead of cls -- at least until you open a new DOS command prompt.

So now let's tackle some other annoying near-equivalents. I often find myself typing "ls" at the command prompt when I meant to type "dir". It runs, but it takes a while to get started. If I create a macro to make ls equivalent to dir, on the other hand, the response is quick and I don't feel like such a klutz for not being able to keep my operating systems straight.

Another macro that I find useful is "date=date /t". Every time

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