ZDNet Definition for: DOS Filters & Pipes

Filters are external commands that change data in some manner. The filters are:

   FIND - Searches for text
   SORT - Rearranges data in alpha order
   MORE - Displays data a screenfull at a time

Pipes let you direct the output of one command as input to another. The pipe symbol is the vertical bar "|" above the "" (press shift-backslash). Pipes are used with filters as follows.

To get a Dir list of all the files that have "ZIP" somewhere in their names, you would type:

    C:>dir | find "ZIP"    command
    PKUNZIP   EXE           results displayed
    PKZIP     EXE
    C:>

The pipe redirects the Dir list output to the find command, which looks for ZIP and filters only lines with "ZIP" in them through to output. See DOS Find, DOS Sort, DOS Type and DOS Dir.

Reproduced with permission from Computer Desktop Encyclopedia. Copyright (c) 1981-2010 The Computer Language Company Inc. All rights reserved.