For instance, in the example shown on the previous page, if you had a file named APRIL.TXT stored in the subdirectory named LETTERS, the full pathname of that file would be:
The pathname tells MS-DOS where to look for a directory or file. In this case, the pathname tells MS-DOS to start at the root directory and go through two subdirectories (WORDPROC and PERSONAL) to find the LETTERS subdirectory. Once in the LETTERS subdirectory, MS-DOS finds the file called APRIL.TXT.
The backslash that starts this pathname tells MS-DOS to begin at the root directory. If you omit the backslash at the beginning of the pathname, MS-DOS begins, not at the root directory but at the current directory. Thus, for example, if the current directory is PERSONAL and you want MS-DOS to find the file APRIL.TXT, which is stored in the subdirectory LETTERS, you can specify the pathname like this:
LETTERS\APRIL.TXT
Because this pathname does not begin with a backslash, MS-DOS starts in the current directory (PERSONAL), moves to the subdirectory LETTERS, then finds the file APRIL.TXT. If you did begin with the backslash, MS-DOS would not find the file, because it is a subdirectory of PERSONAL, not of the root directory.
5-10 Using MS-DOSWith Your Equity LT-286