DESCRIBE - Create or modify file descriptions

 Purpose:    Create, modify, or delete file and subdirectory descriptions. 
             
             
 Format:     DESCRIBE [/A:[[-]rhsda]] file [[/D]"description "] ... 
             
             file :  The file, directory, or list of files and directories 
             to operate on. 
             description :  The description to attach to the file. 
             

             /A: (Attribute select)          /D(escription follows) 
 
 File Selection 

 Supports extended wildcards, ranges, multiple file names, and include 
 lists. 

 Usage 

 DESCRIBE adds descriptions to files and subdirectories.  The descriptions 
 can be displayed by DIR in single-column mode and by SELECT. 
  Descriptions let you identify your files in much more meaningful ways 
 than you can in an eight-character filename. 

 You enter a description on the command line by typing the DESCRIBE 
 command, the filename, and the description in quotation marks, like this: 
 

 
         [c:\] describe memo.txt "Memo to Bob about party"
 

 If you don't put a description on the command line, DESCRIBE will prompt 
 you for it: 

 
         [c:\] describe memo.txt
         Describe "memo.txt" : Memo to Bob about party
 

 If you use wildcards or multiple filenames with the DESCRIBE command and 
 don't include the description text, you will be prompted to enter a 
 description for each file.  If you do include the description on the 
 command line, all matching files will be given the same description. 

 If you use DESCRIBE on an HPFS drive, you must quote the file name if it 
 contains whitespace or special characters.  See File Names for additional 
 details. 

 If you enter a quoted description on the command line, and the text 
 matches the name of a file in the current directory, the command 
 processor will treat the string as a quoted file name, not as description 
 text as you intended.  To resolve this problem use the /D switch 
 immediately prior to the quoted description (with no intervening spaces). 
  For example, if the current directory contains the files DATA.TST and 
 "Test File", the first of these commands will work as intended, but the 
 second will not (in the second example the string "test file" will be 
 treated as a second file name, when it is intended to be description 
 text): 

 
         [c:\] describe data.tst /D"test file"
         [c:\] describe data.tst "test file"
 

 On HPFS drives you will not see file descriptions in a normal DIR 
 display, because DIR must leave space for the long filenames.  To view 
 the descriptions, use DIR /Z to display the directory in FAT format. 

 Each description can be up to 511 characters long.  You can change this 
 limit with the DescriptionMax directive in CMD.INI.  In order to fit your 
 descriptions on a single line in a standard DIR display, keep them to 4o 
 characters or less (longer descriptions are wrapped in the DIR output). 
  DESCRIBE can edit descriptions longer than DescriptionMax (up to a limit 
 of 511 characters), but will not allow you to lengthen the existing text. 
 

 The descriptions are stored in each directory in a hidden file called 
 DESCRIPT.ION.  Use the ATTRIB command to remove the hidden attribute from 
 this file if you need to copy or delete it.  DESCRIPT.ION is always 
 created as a hidden file, but will not be re-hidden by CMD.EXE if you 
 remove the hidden attribute. 

 You can change the description file name with the SETDOS /D command, or 
 the DescriptionName directive in CMD.INI, and retrieve it with the _DName 
 internal variable.  Use caution when changing the description file name, 
 as changing the name from the default will make it difficult to transfer 
 file descriptions to another system. 

 The description file is modified appropriately whenever you perform an 
 internal command which affects it (such as COPY, MOVE, DEL, or RENAME), 
 but not if you use an external program (such as XCOPY or a visual shell). 
  You can disable description processing on the Options 1 page of the 
 OPTION dialogs, with the Descriptions directive in the .INI file, or with 
 SETDOS /D. 

 When you COPY or MOVE files between two directories, both of which have 
 descriptions, and you use switches which enable processing of hidden 
 files (or you have removed the hidden attribute from DESCRIPT.ION), you 
 must use caution to avoid overwriting existing file descriptions in the 
 destination directory with the DESCRIPT.ION file from the source 
 directory.  See the notes under the Advanced Features sections of COPY 
 and MOVE for additional details. 

 Options 

    /A::    (Attribute select) Select only those files that have the 
            specified attribute(s) set.  Preceding the attribute character 
            with a hyphen [-] will select files that do not have that 
            attribute set.  The colon [:] after /A is required.  The 
            attributes are: 

               R  Read-only 
               H  Hidden 
               S  System 
               D  Subdirectory 
               A  Archive 
 

 If no attributes are listed at all (e.g., DESCRIBE /A: ...), DESCRIBE 
 will select all files and subdirectories including hidden and system 
 files.  If attributes are combined, all the specified attributes must 
 match for a file to be selected. For example, /A:RHS will select only 
 those files with all three attributes set. /D:(Description follows) The 
 quoted string immediately following this switch is a description, not a 
 file name. Use /D to avoid any ambiguity in the meaning of quoted 
 strings.  See the Usage section above for details.