dos filename more than one work

[cbrown]

Hello.
I am running DOS on a Windows 2000 Professional machine. I have a file on my desktop that I want to access named 'New Text Document.txt'. Since DOS will not allow me to open this file using that name (because of the spaces) how would I open this file?

Thanks, Chris

--Sorry if this question sounds stupid.

ex.

more New Text Document.txt

[TwoRails]

Hi cbrown,

Welcome to PC Mechanic !!

I don't know about W2K, but in XP you can list the directory in the command line with the "/x" switch to show the files in the directory and it will show the DOS name as well.

I created a file, 'New Text Document.txt' as per you example, and it shows as:

NEWTEX~1.TXT

You results may vary.

HTH

TwoRails

[pillainp]

cbrown,
There are two ways you can solve this problem.
1) Since DOS uses the 8.3 system for file names (8 characters for file name and 3 for the extension), it will, as TwoRails says, name any file with a longer name using the following convention:
Remove spaces in the file name and use the first 8 characters and the new DOS-only filename: if more than one file exists that share the same first 6 characters (eg. New Text Document.txt and New Text.txt), DOS will name the files NEWTEX~1.txt and NEWTEX~2.TXT.
You can then search in the directory using that file name. Or you could use the "*" or "?" wildcards to locate all those files.

2) In CMD as seen in Win2K and WinXP, you can enclose the whole file name (including spaces) within quotes and then issue a DIR or EDIT command:
eg: DIR Desktop\"New Text Document.txt"

Hope that helps,

NPP

[Mac Medic]

This may be a daft answer, but why not just rename the file?

[TwoRails]

That would work for a file or two, but if cbrown is dealing with a bunch of files, then renaming them would get frustrating and out of hand.