Del (command)
command in DOS, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows command line interpreters
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.
Implementations
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.
The public source identifies “Del (command)” as command in DOS, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows command line interpreters. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around command, Microsoft and Windows.
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This entry incorporates text from “Del (command)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.