Using pathnames – Epson 10020 User Manual

Page 77

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To change from PERSONAL back to WORDPROC, you can

use the special symbol . . (two periods) or you can use an

absolute pathname. (The . . symbol always designates the

parent directory, which is the level above the current
directory.) In other words, you can type:

CD . .

or

CD \WORDPROC

Using Pathnames

A pathname tells MS-DOS how to find its way to the directory
you want to access. There are two types of pathnames: relative

and absolute. A relative pathname tells MS-DOS how to find

its way to the desired directory from the

current default

directory.

An absolute pathname tells MS-DOS how to find its way to

the desired directory from the root directory.

Here is an example of an absolute pathname:

\WORDPROC\PERSONAL

The backslash at the beginning of this pathname tells

MS-DOS to start its search at the root directory, proceed down

the directory tree to WORDPROC, then continue down the
tree to PERSONAL.

Here is an example of a relative pathname:

SALES

Because this pathname does not begin with a backslash,
MS-DOS assumes that the starting point of the path is the

current, default directory. This pathname thus tells MS-DOS

to find a directory named SALES that is a subdirectory in the

current, default directory. Using the example above, you would

have to be logged onto the SPDSHEET directory for this
pathname to be valid.

3-18

Using MS-DOS With Your Computer

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