CDPATH
When you change directories with an automatic directory change, CD, CDD,
or PUSHD command, CMD.EXE must find the directory you want to change to.
To do so, the command processor first uses the traditional method to find
a new directory.
When the traditional search method fails, CMD.EXE tries to find the
directory you requested via the CDPATH, then via an Extended Directory
Search. This section covers only the CDPATH.
Enabling both CDPATH and Extended Directory Searches can yield confusing
results, so we recommend that you do not use both features at the same
time. If you prefer to explicitly list where the command processor should
look for directories, use CDPATH. If you prefer to have the command
processor look at all of the directory names on your disk, use Extended
Directory Searches.
CDPATH is an environment variable, and is similar to the PATH variable
used to search for executable files: it contains an explicit list of
directories to search when attempting to find a new directory. The
command processor appends the specified directory name to each directory
in CDPATH and attempts to change to that drive and directory. It stops
when it finds a match or when it reaches the end of the CDPATH list.
CDPATH is ignored if a complete directory name (one beginning with a
backslash [ \]) is specified, or if a drive letter is included in the
name. It is only used when a name is given with no drive letter or
leading backslash.
CDPATH provides a quick way to find commonly used subdirectories in an
explicit list of locations. You can create CDPATH with the SET command.
The format of CDPATH is similar to that of PATH: a list of directories
separated by semicolons [;]. For example, if you want the directory
change commands to search the C:\DATA directory, the D:\SOFTWARE
directory, and the root directory of drive E:\ for the subdirectories that
you name, you should create CDPATH with this command:
[c:\] set cdpath=c:\data;d:\software;e:\
Suppose you are currently in the directory C:\WP\LETTERS\JANUARY, and
you'd like to change to D:\SOFTWARE\UTIL. You could change directories
explicitly with the command:
[c:\wp\letters\january] cdd d:\software\util
However, because the D:\SOFTWARE directory is listed in your CDPATH
variable as shown in the previous example (we'll assume it is the first
directory in the list with a UTIL subdirectory), you can simply enter the
command
[c:\wp\letters\january] cdd util
or, using an automatic directory change:
[c:\wp\letters\january] util\
to change to D:\SOFTWARE\UTIL.
As it handles this request, the command processor looks first in the
current directory, and attempts to find the C:\WP\LETTERS\JANUARY\UTIL
subdirectory. Then it looks at CDPATH, and appends the name you entered,
UTIL, to each entry in the CDPATH variable -- in other words, it tries to
change to C:\DATA\UTIL, then to D:\SOFTWARE\UTIL. Because this change
succeeds, the search stops and the directory change is complete.
Created using Inf-PHP v.2 (c) 2003 Yuri Prokushev
Created using Inf-HTML v.0.9b (c) 1995 Peter Childs