Batch file - Wikipedia 06-01-18 02(34

Batch file
A batch file is a kind of Batch file
script file in DOS, OS/2
and Microsoft Windows. It
consists of a series of
commands to be executed
by the command-line Filename
.bat, .cmd, .btm
extensions
interpreter, stored in a
plain text file. A batch file application/bat
may contain any command
application/x-bat
the interpreter accepts Internet
application/x-msdos-
interactively and use media type
program
constructs that enable
text/plain
conditional branching and
looping within the batch Type of format Scripting
file, such as IF, FOR, and
Container for Scripts
GOTO labels. The term
"batch" is from batch processing, meaning "non-interactive execution",
though a batch file may not process a batch of multiple data.

Similar to Job Control Language (JCL) and other systems on mainframe

and minicomputer systems, batch files were added to ease the work
required for certain regular tasks by allowing the user to set up a script to
automate them. When a batch file is run, the shell program (usually
COMMAND.COM or cmd.exe) reads the file and executes its commands,
normally line-by-line.[1] Unix-like operating systems, such as Linux, have a
similar, but more flexible, type of file called a shell script[citation needed].

The filename extension .bat is used in DOS and Windows. Windows NT

and OS/2 also added .cmd. Batch files for other environments may have
different extensions, e.g., .btm in 4DOS, 4OS2 and 4NT related shells.

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The detailed handling of batch files has changed. Some of the detail in this
article applies to all batch files, while other details apply only to certain
versions.

Variants

DOS

In DOS, a batch file can be started from the command-line interface by

typing its name, followed by any required parameters and pressing the ↵
Enter key. When DOS loads, the file AUTOEXEC.BAT, when present, is
automatically executed, so any commands that need to be run to set up the
DOS environment may be placed in this file. Computer users would have
the AUTOEXEC.BAT file set up the system date and time, initialize the
DOS environment, load any resident programs or device drivers, or
initialize network connections and assignments.

A .bat file name extension identifies a file containing commands that are
executed by the command interpreter COMMAND.COM line by line, as if it
were a list of commands entered manually, with some extra batch-file-
specific commands for basic programming functionality, including a GOTO
command for changing flow of line execution.

Early Windows

Microsoft Windows was introduced in 1985 as a graphical user interface-

based (GUI) overlay on text-based operating systems and was designed to
run on DOS. In order to start it, the WIN command was used, which could
be added to the end of the AUTOEXEC.BAT file to allow automatic loading
of Windows. In the earlier versions, one could run a .bat type file from
Windows in the MS-DOS Prompt. Windows 3.1x and earlier, as well as
Windows 9x invoked COMMAND.COM to run batch files.

OS/2

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The IBM OS/2 operating system supported DOS-style batch files. It also
included a version of REXX, a more advanced batch-file scripting
language. IBM and Microsoft started developing this system, but during
the construction of it broke up after a dispute; as a result of this, IBM
referred to their DOS-like console shell without mention of Microsoft,
naming it just DOS, although this seemingly made no difference with
regard to the way batch files worked from COMMAND.COM.

OS/2's batch file interpreter also supports an EXTPROC command. This

passes the batch file to the program named on the EXTPROC file as a data
file. The named program can be a script file; this is similar to the #!
mechanism.

Windows NT

Unlike Windows 98 and earlier, the Windows NT family of operating

systems does not depend on MS-DOS. Windows NT introduced an
enhanced 32-bit command interpreter (cmd.exe) that could execute scripts
with either the .CMD or .BAT extension. Cmd.exe added additional
commands, and implemented existing ones in a slightly different way, so
that the same batch file (with different extension) might work differently
with cmd.exe and COMMAND.COM. In most cases, operation is identical if
the few unsupported commands are not used. Cmd.exe's extensions to
COMMAND.COM can be disabled for compatibility.

Microsoft released a version of cmd.exe for Windows 9x and ME called

WIN95CMD to allow users of older versions of Windows to use certain
cmd.exe-style batch files.

As of Windows 8, cmd.exe is the normal command interpreter for batch

files; the older COMMAND.COM can be run as well in 32-bit versions of
Windows able to run 16-bit programs.[2]

Filename extensions

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.bat
The first filename extension used by Microsoft for batch files. This
extension runs with DOS and all versions of Windows, under
COMMAND.COM or cmd.exe, despite the different ways the two
command interpreters execute batch files.
.cmd
Used for batch files in Windows NT family and sent to cmd.exe for
interpretation. COMMAND.COM does not recognize this file name
extension, so cmd.exe scripts are not executed in the wrong Windows
environment by mistake. In addition, append, dpath, ftype, set, path,
assoc and prompt commands, when executed from a .bat file, alter the
value of the errorlevel variable only upon an error, whereas from
within a .cmd file, they would affect errorlevel even when returning
without an error.[3] It is also used by IBM's OS/2 for batch files.
.btm
The extension used by 4DOS, 4OS2, 4NT and Take Command. These
scripts are faster, especially with longer ones, as the script is loaded
entirely ready for execution, rather than line-by-line.[4]

Batch file parameters

COMMAND.COM and cmd.exe support that a number of special variables

(%0, %1 through %9) in order to refer to the path and name of the batch job
and the first nine calling parameters from within the batch job, see also
SHIFT. Non-existent parameters are replaced by a zero-length string. They
can be used similar to environment variables, but are not stored in the
environment. Microsoft and IBM refer to these variables as replacement
parameters or replaceable parameters, whereas Digital Research, Novell
and Caldera established the term replacement variables[5] for them. JP
Software calls them batch file parameters.[6]

Examples

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This example batch file displays Hello World!, prompts and waits for the
user to press a key, and then terminates. (Note: It does not matter if
commands are lowercase or uppercase unless working with variables)

@ECHO OFF
ECHO Hello World!
PAUSE

To execute the file, it must be saved with the extension .bat (or .cmd for
Windows NT-type operating systems) in plain text format, typically created
by using a text editor such as Microsoft Notepad or a word processor in
text mode.

When executed, the following is displayed:

Hello World!
Press any key to continue . . .

Explanation

The interpreter executes each line in turn, starting with the first. The @
symbol at the start of any line prevents the prompt from displaying that
command as it is executed. The command ECHO OFF turns off the prompt
permanently, or until it is turned on again. The combined @ECHO OFF is
often as here the first line of a batch file, preventing any commands from
displaying, itself included. Then the next line is executed and the ECHO
Hello World! command outputs Hello World!. The next line is executed
and the PAUSE command displays Press any key to continue . . . and
pauses the script's execution. After a key is pressed, the script terminates,
as there are no more commands. In Windows, if the script is executed from
an already running command prompt window, the window remains open
at the prompt as in MS-DOS; otherwise, the window closes on termination.

Limitations and exceptions

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Null values in variables

Variable expansions are substituted textually into the command, and thus
variables which contain nothing simply disappear from the syntax, and
variables which contain spaces turn into multiple tokens. This can lead to
syntax errors or bugs.

For example, if %foo% is empty, this statement:

IF %foo%==bar ECHO Equal

parses as the erroneous construct:

Similarly, if %foo% contains abc def, then a different syntax error results:

IF abc def==bar ECHO Equal

The usual way to prevent this problem is to surround variable expansions

in quotes so that an empty variable expands into the valid expression IF
""=="bar" instead of the invalid IF ==bar. The text that is being compared
to the variable must also be enclosed in quotes, because the quotes are not
special delimiting syntax; these characters represent themselves.

IF "%foo%"=="bar" ECHO Equal

The delayed !VARIABLE! expansion available in Windows 2000 and later

may be used to avoid these syntactical errors. In this case, null or multi-
word variables do not fail syntactically because the value is expanded after
the IF command is parsed:

IF !foo!==bar ECHO Equal

Another difference in Windows 2000 or higher is that an empty variable

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(undefined) is not substituted. As described in previous examples, previous

batch interpreter behaviour would have resulted in an empty string.
Example:

C:\>set MyVar=
C:\>echo %MyVar%
%MyVar%

C:\>if "%MyVar%"=="" (echo MyVar is not defined) else (echo MyVar is %MyVar%
MyVar is %MyVar%

Batch interpreters prior to Windows 2000 would have displayed result

MyVar is not defined.

Quotation marks and spaces in passed strings

For some commands, spaces are treated as delimiters in commands,

unless those spaces are enclosed by quotation marks. A single
quotation mark (") is not included as part of the string. However, an
escaped quotation mark (""") can be part of the string.
For other commands, spaces are not treated as delimiters and do not
need quotation marks. If quotes are included they become part of the
string.

This can cause conflicts where a string contains quotation marks, and is to
be inserted into another line of text that must also be enclosed in quotation
marks:

C:\>set foo="this string is enclosed in quotation marks"

C:\>echo "test 1 %foo%"

"test 1 "this string is enclosed in quotation marks""

C:\>eventcreate /T Warning /ID 1 /L System /SO "Source" /D "Example: %foo%"

ERROR: Invalid Argument/Option - 'string'.
Type "EVENTCREATE /?" for usage.

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On Windows 2000 and later, the solution is to replace each occurrence of a

quote character within a value by a series of three quote characters:

C:\>set foo="this string is enclosed in quotes"

C:\>set foo=%foo:"="""%

C:\>echo "test 1 %foo%"

"test 1 """this string is enclosed in quotes""""

C:\>eventcreate /T Warning /ID 1 /L System /SO "Source" /D "Example: %foo%"

SUCCESS: A 'Warning' type event is created in the 'Source' log/source.

Escaped characters in strings

Some characters, such as pipe (|) characters, have special meaning to the
command line. They cannot be printed as text using the ECHO command
unless escaped using the caret ^ symbol:

C:\>Echo foo | bar

'bar' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

C:\>Echo foo ^| bar

foo | bar

However, escaping does not work as expected when inserting the escaped
character into an environment variable. The variable ends up containing a
live pipe command when merely echoed. It is necessary to escape both the
caret itself and the escaped character for the character display as text in the
variable:

C:\>set foo=bar | baz

'baz' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

C:\>set foo=bar ^| baz

C:\>echo %foo%

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'baz' is not recognized as an internal or external command,

operable program or batch file.

C:\>set foo=bar ^^^| baz

C:\>echo %foo%
bar | baz

The delayed !VARIABLE! expansion available with CMD /V:ON or with

SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION in Windows 2000 and later may be
used to show special characters stored in environment variables because
the variable value is expanded after the command was parsed:

C:\>cmd /V:ON
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\>set foo=bar ^| baz

C:\>echo !foo!
bar | baz

Sleep or scripted delay

Until the TIMEOUT command was introduced with Windows Vista, there
was no easy way to implement a timed pause, as the PAUSE command
halts script activity indefinitely until any key is pressed.

Many workarounds were possible,[7] but generally only worked in some

environments: The CHOICE command was not available in older DOS
versions, PING was only available if TCP/IP was installed, and so on. No
solution was available from Microsoft, but a number of small utility
programs, could be installed from other sources. A commercial example
would be the 1988 Norton Utilities Batch Enhancer (BE) command, where
BE DELAY 18 would wait for 1 second, or the free 94-byte WAIT.COM[8]
where WAIT 5 would wait for 5 seconds, then return control to the script.
Most such programs are 16-bit .COM files, so are incompatible with 64-bit
Windows.

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Text output with stripped CR/LF

Normally, all printed text automatically has the control characters for
carriage return (CR) and line feed (LF) appended to the end of each line.

batchtest.bat

C:\>batchtest.bat
foo
bar

It does not matter if the two echo commands share the same command
line; the CR/LF codes are inserted to break the output onto separate lines:

C:\>@echo Message 1&@echo Message 2

Message 1
Message 2

A trick discovered with Windows 2000 and later is to use the special
prompt for input to output text without CR/LF trailing the text. In this
example, the CR/LF does not follow Message 1, but does follow Line 2 and
Line 3:

batchtest2.bat

@echo off
set /p ="Message 1"<nul
echo Message 2
echo Message 3

C:\>batchtest2.bat
Message 1Message 2
Message 3

This can be used to output data to a text file without CR/LF appended to
the end:

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C:\>set /p ="Message 1"<nul >data.txt

C:\>set /p ="Message 2"<nul >>data.txt
C:\>set /p ="Message 3"<nul >>data.txt
C:\>type data.txt
Message 1Message 2Message 3

However, there is no way to inject this stripped CR/LF prompt output

directly into an environment variable.

Setting a UNC working directory from a shortcut

It is not possible to have a command prompt that uses a UNC path as the
current working directory; e.g. \\server\share\directory\

The command prompt requires the use of drive letters to assign a working
directory, which makes running complex batch files stored on a server
UNC share more difficult. While a batch file can be run from a UNC file
path, the working directory default is C:\Windows\System32\.

In Windows 2000 and later, a workaround is to use the PUSHD and POPD
command with command extensions.[9]

If not enabled by default, command extensions can be temporarily enabled

using the /E:ON switch for the command interpreter.

So to run a batch file on a UNC share, assign a temporary drive letter to the
UNC share, and use the UNC share as the working directory of the batch
file, a Windows shortcut can be constructed that looks like this:

Target: %COMSPEC% /E:ON /C "PUSHD

"""\\SERVER\SHARE\DIR1\DIR2\""" & BATCHFILE.BAT & POPD"

The working directory attribute of this shortcut is ignored.

This also solves a problem related to User Account Control (UAC) on

Windows Vista and newer. When an administrator is logged on and UAC is
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enabled, and they try to run a batch file as administrator from a network
drive letter, using the right-click file context menu, the operation will
unexpectedly fail. This is because the elevated UAC privileged account
context does not have network drive letter assignments, and it is not
possible to assign drive letters for the elevated context via the Explorer
shell or logon scripts. However, by creating a shortcut to the batch file
using the above PUSHD / POPD construct, and using the shortcut to run
the batch file as administrator, the temporary drive letter will be created
and removed in the elevated account context, and the batch file will
function correctly.

The following syntax does correctly expand to the path of the current batch
script.

%~dp0

UNC default paths are turned off by default as they used to crash older
programs.[10]

The Dword registry value DisableUNCCheck at

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor[10] allows
the default directory to be UNC. CD command will refuse to change but
placing a UNC path in Default Directory in a shortcut to Cmd or by using
the Start command. start "" /d \\127.0.0.1\C$ "cmd /k" (C$ share is
for administrators).

Character set

Batch files use an OEM character set, as defined by the computer, e.g. Code
page 437. The non-ASCII parts of these are incompatible with the Unicode
or Windows character sets otherwise used in Windows so care needs to be
taken.[11] Non-English file names work only if entered through a DOS
character set compatible editor. File names with characters outside this set

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won't work in batch files.

To get output in Unicode into file pipes from an internal command such as
dir, one can use the cmd /U command. For example, cmd /U /C dir >
files.txt creates a file containing a directory listing with correct Windows
characters, in the UTF-16LE encoding.

Batch viruses and malware

As with any other programming language, batch files can be used

maliciously. Simple trojans and fork bombs are easily created, and batch
files can do a form of DNS poisoning by modifying the hosts file. Batch
viruses are possible, and can also spread themselves via USB flash drives
by using Windows' Autorun capability.[12]

The following command in a batch file will delete all the data in the current
directory (folder) - without first asking for confirmation:

These three commands are a simple fork bomb that will continually
replicate itself to deplete available system resources, slowing down or
crashing the system:

:TOP
start "" %0
goto TOP

Other Windows scripting languages

The cmd.exe command processor that interprets .cmd files is supported in

all 32- and 64-bit versions of Windows up to at least Windows 10.
COMMAND.EXE, which interprets .BAT files, was supported in all 16- and
32-bit versions up to at least Windows 10.[13]

There are other, later and more powerful, scripting languages available for
Windows. However, these require the scripting language interpreter to be

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installed before they can be used:

KiXtart (.kix) — developed by a Microsoft employee in 1991,

specifically to meet the need for commands useful in a network logon
script while retaining the simple 'feel' of a .cmd file.
Windows Script Host (.vbs , .js and .wsf) — released by Microsoft in
1998, and consisting of cscript.exe and wscript.exe, runs scripts
written in VBScript or JScript. It can run them in windowed mode
(with the wscript.exe host) or in console-based mode (with the
cscript.exe host). They have been a part of Windows since Windows
98.
PowerShell (.ps1) — released in 2006 by Microsoft and can operate
with Windows XP (SP2/SP3) and later versions. PowerShell can
operate both interactively (from a command-line interface) and also
via saved scripts, and has a strong resemblance to Unix shells.[14]
Unix-style shell scripting languages can be used if a Unix
compatibility tool, such as Cygwin, is installed.
Cross-platform scripting tools including Perl, Python, Ruby, Rexx,
Node.js and PHP are available for Windows.

Script files run if the filename without extension is entered. There are rules
of precedence governing interpretation of, say, DoThis if DoThis.cmd,
DoThis.bat, DoThis.exe, etc. exist; by default DoThis.cmd has highest
priority. This default order may be modified in newer operating systems by
the user-settable PATHEXT environment variable.

See also

List of DOS commands

References

1. ^ "Using batch files: Scripting; Management Services".

Technet.microsoft.com. 2005-01-21. Retrieved 2012-11-30.

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2. ^ To verify that COMMAND.COM remains available (in the

\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 directory), type COMMAND.COM at the 32-bit
Windows 7 command prompt.
3. ^ "Difference between bat and cmd | WWoIT - Wayne's World of IT".
waynes-world-it.blogspot.fr. 2012-11-15. Retrieved 2012-11-30.
4. ^ "btm file extension :: all about the .btm file type". Cryer.co.uk.
Retrieved 2012-11-30.
5. ^ DR-DOS 7.02 User Guide, Caldera, Inc., 1998, archived from the
original on 2016-11-05, retrieved 2013-08-10
6. ^ Brothers, Hardin; Rawson, Tom; Conn, Rex C.; Paul, Matthias;
Dye, Charles E.; Georgiev, Luchezar I. (2002-02-27). 4DOS 8.00
online help.
7. ^ "How to do a delay", ericphelps.com
8. ^ Utilities for DOS, linking to WAIT.ZIP (archive of WAIT.COM) and
other programs
9. ^ "If Command Extensions are enabled the PUSHD command accepts
network paths in addition to the normal drive letter and path. If a
network path is specified, PUSHD creates a temporary drive letter that
points to that specified network resource and then change the current
drive and directory, using the newly defined drive letter. Temporary
drive letters are allocated from Z: on down, using the first unused
drive letter found." --The help for PUSHD in Windows 7
10. ^ a b https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/156276
11. ^ Chen, Raymond. "Keep your eye on the code page". Microsoft.
12. ^ http://www.explorehacking.com/2011/01/batch-files-art-of-
creating-viruses.html
13. ^ Availability of CMD.EXE and COMMAND.COM can be confirmed
by invoking them in any version of Windows (COMMAND.COM not in
64-bit versions; probably only available in Windows 8 32-bit versions
if installed with option to support 16-bit programs)
14. ^ "Windows PowerShell - Unix comes to Windows".
Geekswithblogs.net. Retrieved 2012-11-30.

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External links

Microsoft Windows XP Batch file reference

How Windows batch files work
Windows batch file command overview
File Extension BAT
FreeDOS' FreeCOM : complete feature list
MS-DOS+Win../95/98/ME batch programming links
Windows Command Line Interface script programming links
scripting related information (also command line)

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