Command Line Commands for Dummies

DOS command line interface in terminal window

Perhaps because eHow.com became the internet laughingstock after Google's Panda update or perhaps for some SERPy, SEO-y reason; Demand Media (now called Leaf Group) began moving their content onto "niche sites" or selling it outright. We've noticed a problem with the move, though: the company ran a bulk reformatting that changed the meaning of some of the content, some of it laughably so. If the content was already wrong, however, it sometimes made it worse. That's what happened to "How to Copy & Paste Files Using Command Prompt" when Rhian Hibner's post was moved to Techwalla.

As a long-time fan of the terminal window, the Antisocial Network staffer who uncovered the article comments that while there is a PASTE command in the file-handling command set, it doesn't do what the paste command in Windows does. It's more of a concatenate procedure.  Rhian, wonder of wonders, noticed this (not bad for an English major who had probably never even seen a command tool). So he set out to explain how one invokes the proper command. So far, so good – though he does spend an inordinate amount of time explaining how to move around the file system, and is obviously unaware of the UNIX shortcuts for moving to the home directory or, for that matter, that in both UNIX and DOS, a new command / terminal / console window automatically opens in the user's home directory.

No, Hibner does a reasonable job of slogging through the process, although he does make a fairly serious mistake: he neglects to point out that, while UNIX filesystems use the slash ( / ), DOS filesystems use the backslash ( \ ). Fortunately for Rhian, Microsoft has tweaked the OS to allow use of the slash for most commands... although his final DOS example copy [example.txt] [targetdrive]:/[otherparent]/[yourotherfolder]/ (with angle instead of square brackets) probably won't work because of the wrong-direction slashes. As for the entire concept of relative and absolute paths? fuhgeddaboutit!

Worst of all, perhaps, is the mess that the DMS move to Techwalla made of the text. Instead of Hibner's example, which is either overly complex or just plain wrong but at least has some form of syntax, the current version reads...

"In Windows: 'copy :///'

In Unix: "'cp ///'"

...which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Hibner may have gotten the original wrong -- you can still find his sloppy version with the Wayback Machine, but we're torn between giving him the Dumbass of the Day award for tackling a question without proper grounding or to Techwalla (and Leaf Group, the parent company) for the ridiculous editing job. Either way, dumbass!

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