Microsoft DOS append command
Quick links About append
Availability
Syntax
Examples
About append
Similar to the PATH MS-DOS command, the append command enables a user to open files in the specified directory as if they were in the current directory.
Tip: See our append definition if you're looking for information about how to append text or a file into a file.
Availability
Append.exe is an external command available in the below versions of Microsoft operating systems.
MS-DOS 3.2x - 6.2x
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows ME
Windows NT
Windows 2000
Windows XP
Syntax
APPEND Drive: \Path /X /E Path:on or off
| Drive: | The drive letter to be searched. |
| \Path | The path to be searched. |
| /X :on or :off | Extends the DOS search path for specified files when executing programs. Processes SEARCH FIRST, FIND FIRST and EXEC functions. The :ON and :OFF are new to version MS-DOS 5.0, |
| /Path :on or :off | If path is already included for a program file, :on tells program to also search in appended directories. Default= :on. Note: The default value of = :on was added in MS-DOS 5.0 and above |
| /E | Causes the appended path to be stored in the DOS environment and searched for there. |
| ; | Use ";" to separate multiple Drive:\path statements on one line. |
Examples
Note: You can not use any paths on the same command line as /X and /E. The :ON and :OFF options are only available in MS-DOS 5.0 and later. Do not append within a Windows environment. The append command can be used on a network. Invalid drive specifications will not be detected until DOS attempts to use the search path to find specified files.
append
Using append alone will display the current search path.
append c:\docs;c:\letters;c:\files
Sets the computer to look for files in the docs, letters and files directory, therefore when typing a command such as "edit myfile.txt" if the file is not present in the current directory the computer would also look for the file in docs, letters and files directory.
