In a DOS batch FILE I am trying to understand, I have found a statement which uses the "@" sign in a way I am not familiar with. I have look in several places and my books, but I have not found an explanation. The statement is:

type {file name}\[emailprotected]

Where {file name} is a legitimate file name and temp is a legitimate sub file name

Does anyone know what the "@8" does.

I am familiar with USING the "@" sign to suppress printing of a statement such as "@echo" to suppress the printing of "echo".

Thanks for any help,

Tom
It is a unit of measure
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arroba
It is also used in accounting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_sign

Also:
Quote

In Perl, @ prefixes variables which CONTAIN arrays.
In Pascal, @ is the "address of" operator
In Welsh, it is sometimes known as a malwen or malwoden (a snail).

[ @ ] (Asperand or At) This sign is used in batch files to prevent the text following it on the same line from being displayed on the screen. An example is "ECHO OFF". It is used at the start of most batch files to turn off screen echoing (displaying) for all lines following. Employing `@' with it as "@ECHO OFF", will prevent this Asperand and the words "Echo Off" from appearing on screen.

As well as the above, `@' is used by 4DOS to designate variable FUNCTIONS. "@FILEDATE" will return a file's date, as an example.

Finally, the `@ sign is employed to designate file lists in many versions of DOS. "DEL @FILENAME.lst" means that DOS will delete the files listed in "FILENAME.lst".