Previously,
I said that you can get the available commands by typing
?
at the prompt. You can also use this trick to
find the subcommands of any command. For example, if you know you
want to use the copy
command but cannot remember which
subcommand you need, type:
Router#copy ?
WORD Copy from flash device - format <dev:>[partition:][filename]
flash Copy from system flash
flh-log Copy FLH log file to server
mop Copy from a MOP server
rcp Copy from an rcp server
running-config Copy from current system configuration
startup-config Copy from startup configuration
tftp Copy from a TFTP server
Another use of the question mark is to find all commands that match
what you have typed so far. For example, if you know the first part
of a command, type it and then type a question mark. The router will
return a list of all the matching commands. In the following example,
we remember that the configure
command begins with
“co”, but that’s it. The router gives us the
matching commands:
Router#co?
configure connect copy
Note the important difference between these two examples. In the
first example, there was a space before the question mark, which gave
us the next command that complements copy
. Had
there not been a space, the router would have tried to complete the
word “copy” for us, not given us the next available
commands. In the next example, we did not add the space, so the
router tried to complete “co” with all the commands it
could find that start with “co”.
Another important rule to understand is that the router will return only commands that are relevant to the mode you are currently in. For example, if you are in user mode, you will be given only commands that apply to that mode.
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