Important Notice

The pages on this site contain documentation for very old MS-DOS software, purely for historical purposes. If you're looking for up-to-date documentation, particularly for programming, you should not rely on the information found here, as it will be woefully out of date.

◄Syntax►  ◄Notes►
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                               COPY──Examples
 
The following command copies a file and ensures that an end-of-file
character is at the end of the copied file:
 
    copy memo.doc letter.doc /a
 
To copy the NOTE.TXT file from the current drive and directory to the
directory MYNOTES, and to prevent MS-DOS from prompting you before
overwriting the destination file (if it already exists), type the following
command:
 
    copy note.txt mynotes /y
 
To copy a file named ROBIN.TYP from the current drive and directory to an
existing directory named BIRDS that is located on drive C, type the
following command:
 
    copy robin.typ c:\birds
 
If the BIRDS directory doesn't exist, MS-DOS copies the file ROBIN.TYP into
a file named BIRDS that is located in the root directory on the disk in
drive C.
 
To copy several files into one file, list any number of files as source
parameters on the COPY command line. Separate filenames with a plus sign (+)
and specify a filename for the resulting combined file, as the following
example shows:
 
    copy mar89.rpt + apr89.rpt + may89.rpt report
 
This command combines the files named MAR89.RPT, APR89.RPT, and MAY89.RPT
from the current drive and directory and places them in a file named REPORT
in the current directory on the current drive. When files are combined, the
destination file is created with the current date and time. If you omit
destination, MS-DOS combines the files and stores them under the name of the
first specified file. For example, if a file named REPORT already exists,
you can use the following command to combine all four files in REPORT:
 
    copy report + mar89.rpt + apr89.rpt + may89.rpt
 
You can also combine several files into one by using wildcards, as the
following example shows:
 
    copy *.txt combin.doc
 
This command combines all files in the current directory on the current
drive that have the extension .TXT into one file named COMBIN.DOC, also in
the current directory on the current drive.
 
If you want to combine several binary files into one by using wildcards,
include the /B switch, as the following example shows:
 
    copy /b *.exe combin.exe
 
This prevents MS-DOS from treating CTRL+Z as an end-of-file character.
 
CAUTION:  If you combine binary files, the resulting file might not be
          usable due to internal formatting.
 
In the following example, COPY combines each file that has a .TXT extension
with its corresponding .REF file. The result is a file with the same
filename but with a .DOC extension. Thus, COPY combines FILE1.TXT with
FILE1.REF to form FILE1.DOC. Then COPY combines FILE2.TXT with FILE2.REF to
form FILE2.DOC, and so on.
 
    copy *.txt + *.ref *.doc
 
The following COPY command combines first all files with the .TXT extension,
then all files with the .REF extension into one file named COMBIN.DOC:
 
    copy *.txt + *.ref combin.doc
 
Copying information from the keyboard
 
The following COPY command copies what you type at the keyboard to the
OUTPUT.TXT file:
 
    copy con output.txt
 
After you type this command and press ENTER, MS-DOS copies everything you
type to the file OUTPUT.TXT. When you are finished typing, press CTRL+Z to
indicate that you want to end the file. The CTRL+Z character will appear on
the screen as "Z". You can also end a COPY CON command by pressing the F6
key. When you press F6, it generates the CTRL+Z character, which appears on
the screen as Z.
 
The following example copies information from the keyboard to the printer
connected to LPT1:
 
    copy con lpt1
 
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