Del (command)
Command in various operating systems
In computing, del (or erase) is a command in command-line interpreters (shells) such as COMMAND.COM, cmd.exe, 4DOS, NDOS, 4OS2, 4NT and Windows PowerShell. It is used to delete one or more files or directories from a file system.
01Implementations
The command is available for various operating systems including DOS, Microware OS-9, IBM OS/2, Microsoft Windows and ReactOS. It is analogous to the Unix rm command and to the Stratus OpenVOS delete_file and delete_dircommands.
DEC RT-11, OS/8, RSX-11, and OpenVMS also provide the delete command which can be contracted to del. AmigaDOS and TSC FLEX provide a delete command as well.
The erase command is supported by Tim Paterson's SCP 86-DOS. On MS-DOS, the command is available in versions 1 and later. It is also available in the open-source MS-DOS emulator DOSBox.
Datalight ROM-DOS also includes an implementation of the del and erase commands.
While Digital Research DR-DOS supports del and erase as well, it also supports the shorthand form era, which derived from CP/M. In addition to this, the DR-DOS command processor also supports delq/eraq. These are shorthand forms for the del/era/erase command with an assumed /Q parameter (for 'Query') given as well.
THEOS/OASIS and FlexOS provide only the erase command.
In PowerShell, del and erase are predefined command aliases for the Remove-Item cmdlet which serves the same purpose.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Del (command)”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- ReactOS-0.4.13 del command 667x530.png by Ghettoblaster, Public domain
Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.