WISDOMBAY

Is cmd.exe and command.com the same ? Part I

Page 2

Article by: Pramod S Nair written for www.wisdombay.com

Some Functional Shortcuts

cmd.exe offers a set of nice shortcut's, which can be used extensively for making the working in command mode a lot easier. In this section we will look into some of these shortcuts in command prompt.

F1 Key

This functional key echo's the last executed command from cmd.exe's buffer on to the screen, one character at a time. If the last command is 'echo hello' then pressing F1 key three times will dump the characters 'ech' at the command prompt.

F2 Key

This nifty functional key can be used to get a portion of the last command up to a specific character back on to the command line. The below given example will get the point clear for you.

Fig 1

Fig 2

In Fig 1 we are executing a lengthy command. Suppose you need to get a part of the command upto the character 's' in 'devtools' back to the command prompt. For this press F2 key and a new small window (Fig 2) will popup, prompting you to 'Enter char to copy up to:' Now press 's' and a part of the last executed command up to the character 's' will be prompted back (Fig 3) on the command prompt.

Fig 3

F3 Key

This key dumps the last executed command on to the command prompt.

F4 Key

This key can be utilized for deleting a range of characters form current entry on the command prompt. Try out the below given sample snippet.

In Fig 4 we are inputting a simple echo command.

Fig 4

Now if we need to remove all characters from 'H' in 'Hello' to 'B' in 'Bay' from command prompt, then position the cursor under 'H' and press F4. A new popup as in Fig 5 will be shown, and there press 'B' as input and voila all the characters from 'H' in hello to 'B' will be removed from command prompt.

Fig 5