JOIN COMMAND

Purpose: Join logically a disk to a directory or to another disk. Enables
         creating one directory instead of two separate ones.

Syntax:  [d:] [path] JOIN
         or
         [d:] [path] JOIN d:  d:\directory
         or
         [d:] [path] JOIN d:  /D

Type:    External command

Parameters:

[d:] [path]    defines the drive and the directory, containing the JOIN
               command, only if the command is not on the current
               directory of the default disk.

d:             defines the disk, that should be joined to the directory on
               the other disk.

d:\directory   defines the directory, to which the disk should be joined.
               It should be a subdirectory of the root directory. If the
               specified directory does not exist, it will be created on the
               specified disk by the JOIN command. If it exists, it should
               be empty.

/D             cancels joining structures. The disk to be cut off should be
               specified. For example, if the disk B: was joined to the
               C:\JOINB, the following command will cancel the previous
               JOIN:  A>join b: /d

Notes:

1. If the directory to be joined is not empty, the following message will be
   displayed: "Directory not Empty".

2. The directory you want to join the disk to should not be current. The
   message "Invalid parameter" means, that the current directory was
   specified in the JOIN command.
3. The message "Invalid drive specification" accures when the user tries to
   use a disk which does not exist or which has already been joined.  For
   example, if the drive A is a joined one, you cannot use "A" letter as the
   name of the disk to be joined, until it is cut off.
4. A directory, specified in the command, cannot be the root one (\).
5. Running the JOIN command without parameters allows you to get the list of
   joined disks and directories. For example, if the drive A is joined to
   the C:\LEVEL1 directory, the following message will be displayed:
         A:  =>  C:\LEVEL1
6. When joining a disk to a directory, the whole directory tree of the disk
   (beginning with the root directory) joins the directory.
7. The disk, joined to a network cannot be the parameter of the JOIN
   command. The system displays "Cannot JOIN a network drive" error message.
8. The results of the disk join, redefined by the SUBST and ASSIGN commands
   are unpredictable.
9. The following commands do not work on drives used in the JOIN command:
   BACKUP, RESTORE, FORMAT, DISKCOPY + DISKCOMP.

Example:

     Let's assume, that
- drive B is a default drive,
- the current directory on the drive C is C:\.

                   Joining the disk to the directory:

     Suppose C has the following directory tree:

                          +--------+
                          |   C:\  |
                          +----+---+
                               |
                 +-------------+--------------+
            +----+--+                    +----+----+
            | FILES |                    | REPORTS |
            +-------+                    +---------+

     Drive A joins the directory C:\DRIVEA after the following command:

         B>join a:\drivea

     As the result, we get the following directory tree of the drive C:

                          +--------+
                          |   C:\  |
                          +----+---+
            +------------------+--------------------+
        +---+---+         +----+----+           +---+----+
        | FILES |         | REPORTS |           | DRIVEA |
        +-------+         +---------+           +--------+

Note: The directory DRIVEA was created on the drive C by the JOIN command.

     As the result of the DIR C: command we get:

     Volume in drive C is FIXEDS
     Directory for C:\

     FILES        <DIR>            8-21-85     2:10p
     REPORTS      <DIR>            9-23-85     5:55p
     DRIVEA       <DIR>            9-30-85    12:03a
        3 Files(s)  1048956 bytes free

     After the command DIR A: the message "Invalid drive specification" will
be displayed, because the access to the joined disk is disabled. After the
command DIR C:\DRIVEA the directory of the drive A is displayed.

                   Displaying the joined drives state:

     The JOIN command without parameters displays the joined disks and their
location:

         B>join

     On the screen we have:

         A:  =>  C:\DRIVEA

                             Cancel of JOIN:

     To cancel the join in the last example, use the command:

         B>join a: /d

     Now you get an access to the drive A, because it is not joined any
longer.

                      How to use the JOIN command:

     The JOIN command gives an opportunity to use all advantages of hard and
floppy disks. The following example shows how you can get an access to files
of the drive A through the drive C.

         D>join a: c:\datafils.dir
         D>cd c:\datafils.dir
         D>path=c:\
         D>dataprog c: