Because it is the primary means of displaying the files and directories on disk or other storage medium within a command window, the dir command is one of the most basic commands employed by users of the command line interface to MS-DOS and various versions of Windows.

The dir command has existed as a DOS command since the initial release of MS-DOS. It is built into the DOS command shell, and is not provided as a separate standalone program.

In DOS and Microsoft Windows, dir checks for switches in the %dircmd% environment variable.

In Windows PowerShell, dir is a predefined command alias for the Get-ChildItem Cmdlet which basically serves the same purpose.

See also

• Directory (OpenVMS command)
• List of Unix programs
• List of DOS commands

References