Glossary - P

4 A B C D E F G H I K L M N O R S T U V W X 

Parameter:  A piece of additional information placed after a command or 
function name.  For example, in the command DIR XYZ, XYZ is a parameter. 
 Also used to refer to an alias parameter or batch file parameter. 

Parent Directory:  The directory in which a particular subdirectory 
resides, often seen as the directory "above" a subdirectory. 

Parsing:  The process CMD.EXE performs to analyze the command line, 
perform alias and environment variable expansion, and find the appropriate 
internal command or external command to execute.  More generally, the 
process of breaking down a string or message into its individual 
components in order to process them properly. 

Passed Environment:  A copy of the master environment created before 
running an application, so that any changes made by the application will 
not affect the master environment. 

Path:  A specification of all the directories a file resides in.  For 
example, the path for C:\WPFILES\MYDIR\MEMO.TXT is C:\WPFILES\MYDIR\. 
 Also used to refer to the environment variable PATH, which contains a 
series of path specifications used when searching for external commands 
and batch files. 

Pipe:  A method for collecting the standard output of one program and 
passing it on as the standard input of the next program to be executed, 
signified by a vertical bar "|" on the command line.  See also 
Redirection. 

Previous Working Directory:  The working directory used most recently, 
just prior to the current working directory.  For example, if C:\DATA is 
the current working directory and you switch to D:\UTIL, C:\DATA then 
becomes the previous working directory. 

Primary Shell:  The copy of the character-mode command processor which is 
loaded by the operating system when the system boots or a session opens.