Command-Line Utilities

I use the Windows XP Command Line (cmd.exe) with very high frequency and there are some random tasks that I'd really like to be able to do with it, so I've written a few programs in C# to do them.  You will find them listed below.  This page is currently incomplete since I do not presently have access to the source for one file.  I will post it sometime in the very near future.

System Requirements

• Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Framework which is freely available
• Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista (Anything that runs .NET 2.0) - I haven't explicitly checked anything other than Windows XP.  Let me know if you have any problems.

Installation Instructions

For these files to work they need to be in a folder listed in the system PATH environment variable.  I recommend you just right-click on them and save them to C:\Windows\System32 since that folder is virtually always in the PATH environmental variable.  If you have no idea what an environmental variable is, just do that.   If you're using the command line on a regular basis, however, my guess is you know how to set the path environment variable so if you want to feel free to put them in some other directory and then add that to PATH.

The Files

• OpenFolder - Run it by typing openfolder in the command line.  If it has no arguments, it will open up the graphical file manager (folder) of the current working directory.  It will also accept arguments of relative or absolute directories and open all of them if multiple arguments are specified.
  • Download: OpenFolder.exe [6 KB]
  • Source code: OpenFolder.cs [4 KB]
• Dir2Clip - Copies the current working directory to the clipboard.  Useful initially to me as the ability to copy the directory to the clipboard and then using run to open the folder, but OpenFolder has kind of taken over that functionality.  It may have other uses, however.
  • Download: Dir2Clip.exe [4 KB]
  • Source code: Dir2Clip.cs [1 KB]
• HorizCat - Horizonally concatenates lines of a file together with another character seperating them.  For example, if you gave it three files each 10 lines long you would get a file back of 10 lines with each line being of the following form: <Line from File1><Seperating Character><Line from File2><Seperating Character><Line from File 3>.  The command line arguments are: HorizCat <Seperating Character> <File1> <File2> ... <File n>.  If no seperating character is desired use "" for it.   Additionally, entire phrases can be used to seperate the lines of a file if they're enclosed in parenthesis and given as the first argument.  This was very useful to me for working with .csv (comma seperated value) files.
  • Download: HorizCat.exe [5 KB]
  • Source code: HorizCat.cs [2 KB]

License

These files are licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 3 or later.   A full copy of this license is available. Additionally, there is a FAQ page about the GPL available.  Each source file includes this at the top:

     Copyright 2007 Daniel Parente

    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
    the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or
    (at your option) any later version.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    GNU General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

Please be aware if you plan to redistribute and/or modify.

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