The usage
of commands provided by Windows OS in the command operating manner for MASI software
I. Launch the Command Prompt
Method 1: Right
Click on the ¡°Start¡± button of the lower left on Windows Desktop
Click ¡°Run¡±, a
dialog form will pop up. Type ¡°cmd¡± in the area and
click OK.
The console pops
up.
Method 2: Click
on the ¡°Start¡± button of the lower left on Windows Desktop
Click on
Start-> Windows System-> Command Prompt
The console pops
up.
II. Basic concepts
Currently
working directory: the most left side to > is the currently working
directory. The path marked by the red rectangle in the following figure is the
currently working directory. When typing filename, auto-completion is realized
via TAB key if the file is in the directory.
\: is to divide
levels of the hierarchical files. Before \ is the upper layer of directory and
after \ is the next layer of directory.
. or .\ means the current directory.
.. or ..\ means the previous level of directory.
For instance,
Change disk and
return to the currently working directory in the disk: typing the name of disk
followed by colon.
For instance,
Option of the
commands provided by Windows OS is to begin by /, which is followed by a
specific character.
/?: print the help information of the command
For instance,
The options /P,
/Q of the command are both to begin with /.
III. The commonly used commands
cd:
change directory.
For instance,
dir:
listing files and directory
If directly
typing ¡°dir¡± which is not followed by any options,
the files and directories included in the currently working directory will be
listed. For instance,
If files and
directories included in a specific directory need to be displayed, please type dir followed by the specific directory. For instance,
More information
about the command, please print the help information of the command:
>dir /?
cls:
clearing the terminal screen
exit:
exiting the current command processor
More commands,
please refer to some corresponding documents.
IV. Piping and redirection
output
redirection: >, >>
>: placing
the output in file, as opposed to displaying it at terminal. If the file does
not exist, a new one is created. If the file exists, it will clobber any
existing data in the file.
>>:
placing the output in file, as opposed to displaying it at terminal. If the
file does not exist, a new one is created. If the file exists, it will append
output to the end of the file.
For instance,
The content of
filelist.txt is displayed as follows:
piping:
|
Command 1|
Command 2: the piping operator is placed between two commands. Output of
Command 1 is taken as the input of Command 2. Commands can be connected as
pipe.
For instance,
Output of
command, dir, is used as input of command more, which
paginates text so that one can view files containing more than one screen of
text.
more:
a command to view the contents of a text file one screen at a time
V. Environment variables
>set
Displaying the environment
variables of system and its contents
>set Path
Displaying the
contents of the environment variable, Path
Command set can
also be used to set values of environment variables. Please refer to some
corresponding documents.
If environment
variable is called in batch file, the environment variable needs to be embraced
by % (both before and after the variable). For instance, %CD% means the
currently working directory.
VI. Batch file (.bat file)
Batch file of
Windows OS is a text file with .bat extension. The file includes a series of
commands. When the batch file is executed, the commands in the file execute in
sequence resulting in batch processing.
A simple example
(point clouds files with .dat extension are translated to point clouds with LAS file
format in mode of batch) is shown as follows:
The batch file,
transformLas.bat, includes 16 commands of txt2las.exe. Execution of
transformLas.bat is equal to serially executing the 16 commands.
VII. Application of combination
It will promote efficiency
that combining commands with the function of column editing provided by some
editors. For instance, in order to get the list of files in a directory, the
following can be used.
>dir >> filelist.txt
The list of
files is redirected to the file, filelist.txt. Then, the file is edited and
column editing is used to copy all filenames.
Meanwhile,
column editing also supports typing, deleting and pasting operations. It will
largely promote the efficiency.
VIII. Tips
(1) In order to
reduce errors in typing path and filename and to save time, a new way can be
used to replace typing on console. A file is selected in explorer and then the
file can be drawn to console. The absolute path and filename of the file will
be automatically displayed on console.
(2) The current
path in explorer can be copied and pasted to console. The operation is to first
click right key of mouse when the mouse is on the top of console and then to
select paste on the drop-down menu. Command, cd, can be used to change the
pasted path as the working directory. Filename can also be appended to the path
by typing characters on console.
(3) When the
path and filename are typed on console, the auto-completion can be used via TAB
key.