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dos                          Command                          dos




Transfer files to/from an MS-DOS file system

dos dlrtx[flags] [device][file ...]

The command dos allows  the COHERENT user to manipulate an MS-DOS
file  system, which  may  be either  a hard-disk  partition or  a
floppy disk.  It can format  or label an MS-DOS file system, list
the  files in  it,  transfer files  between it  and COHERENT,  or
delete files from it.

The given device must be  a special file that specifies an MS-DOS
file  system, such  as floppy-disk  drive /dev/fha0  or hard-disk
drive /dev/at0a.  The  default device is /dev/dos, which the sys-
tem administrator  should link to  the most commonly  used device
name.

dos  converts  between  the  differing file-name  conventions  of
COHERENT and MS-DOS.  An MS-DOS file argument may be specified in
lower or upper case,  using `/' as the path-name separator.  When
transferring files  from MS-DOS to COHERENT,  dos converts an MS-
DOS filename  to a COHERENT filename in lower  case only.  If the
MS-DOS filename contains no extension, the COHERENT filename con-
tains no  `.'.  When transferring files  from COHERENT to MS-DOS,
dos converts all  alphabetic characters in a COHERENT filename to
upper case; if a period `.'  appears at the beginning or end of a
file name,  dos converts it  `_'.  dos truncates the  part of the
filename before the last '.' to a maximum of eight characters and
truncates the extension to a maximum of three characters.

The  command  line  must specify  exactly  one  of the  following
functions.

d  Delete each file from the MS-DOS filesystem.  This option also
   allows the user to delete empty directories.

l  Label  the MS-DOS file system.  The  command line must specify
   exactly one file argument, which gives the label.

r  Replace each file on  the MS-DOS file system with the COHERENT
   file of  the same name.  If a given  file argument specifies a
   COHERENT  directory, dos  replaces  its subdirectories  recur-
   sively to  the MS-DOS file  system unless the s  flag is used.
   If no  file is specified, dos copies all  files in the current
   directory to the MS-DOS file system.

t  List the files on the MS-DOS file system.  If no file argument
   is given,  dos lists the entire  MS-DOS filesystem; otherwise,
   it lists  each file.  If  a file argument  specifies an MS-DOS
   subdirectory, dos lists its contents.

x  Extract  each file from  the MS-DOS file system  to a COHERENT
   file of the same name.   If a given file argument specifies an
   MS-DOS  subdirectory, dos  extracts  its contents  recursively
   unless the s flag is used.   If no file is given, dos extracts


COHERENT Lexicon                                           Page 1



dos                          Command                          dos



   all files from the  MS-DOS file system to the current COHERENT
   directory.

The following flags are available.

a     Perform ASCII  newline conversion  on file  transfer.  When
     moving files  from COHERENT to MS-DOS,  this option converts
     each COHERENT newline character `\n' (ASCII LF) to an MS-DOS
     end-of-line (ASCII CR and LF); when moving files from MS-DOS
     to COHERENT, it does the opposite.  By default, dos performs
     binary file transfer, without newline conversion.

k     Keep the  file  modification time  (mtime)  on extract  and
     replace  operations.   By default,  dos  gives extracted  or
     replaced  files the  current  time.  With  this option,  dos
     gives the  extracted or replaced  file the same  time as the
     original file.

n    List files by  newest file first rather than in alphabetical
     order.   This option applies  only to  the table-of-contents
     function.

p    Perform  a piped extract or replace  (for use in pipelines).
     The  command line  must specify  exactly one  file argument.
     For extract,  dos reads the given file and  writes it to the
     standard output.  For  replace, dos reads the standard input
     and writes it to the given file.

s     Suppress extraction or  replacement of  subdirectories.  By
     default,  dos  extracts  or replaces  subdirectories  recur-
     sively.

v    Verbose  option.  Provide additional  information about each
     function performed.

***** See Also *****

commands, fdformat, mkfs

***** Notes *****

dos does  not work with  MS-DOS hard-disk file  systems that hold
more than 64-kilobyte  clusters (i.e., with four-byte FAT entries
rather than  1.5-byte or two-byte FAT entries).   It does not un-
derstand MS-DOS 3.3 extended disk partitions (where a single par-
tition contains more than one MS-DOS filesystem).

dos does not check for unusual characters in a COHERENT file name
or for file names that differ from other file names only in case.








COHERENT Lexicon                                           Page 2


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