DOS Batch - File Examples

The FTP command support the "-s:ftpscript.txt" option. The FTP commands listed in ftpscript.txt will automatically run after FTP starts. The FTP command can be started from a batch file.

• FTP -v -i -s:ftpscript.txt

This example shows how to enhance a program with persistent settings that can be changed using a menu.

I.e.:

• Choose 1 to change the 'Install version' from 'Client' to 'Server'.
• Choose 1 again to change the 'Install version' back to 'Client'.
• Choose 2 to change the 'Size of installation' from Full to 'Regular'.
• Choose 2 again to change the 'Size of installation' to 'Mini'.
• Choose 2 again to change the 'Size of installation' back to 'Full'.
• Choose I to begin the installation. Note: this example is just a simulation and will not install anything on your PC.

• simple and well structured
• settings changeable at runtime
• settings are persistent, the batch will remember all settings from the last run
• progress indication during simulated file installation

• Initialization of the command processor
• Version History for manual script change tracking
• Window title of choice
• Delayed exit for unattended completion

This batch creates a lookup list of all files on the C: drive.
When running the batch the first time type a hyphen in order to build the lookup list first.

• The lookup list will be appended to the batch file itself.
• Options: build/rebuild lookup list, or locate a file
• Regular expressions are supported, see FINDSTR for details.

This batch allows string substitution in a text file. It parses each line of a text file for a particular string and replaces it with another string.
I.e. To replace all occurrences of "Yellow Submarine" in "color.txt" with "uboot" and put the output on the screen run:
BatchSubstitute.bat "Yellow Submarine" uboot color.txt
Or
type color.txt|BatchSubstitute.bat "Yellow Submarine" uboot

Optionally pipe the output into a new file, i.e.
BatchSubstitute.bat "Yellow Submarine" uboot color.txt>newfile.txt
Or
type color.txt|BatchSubstitute.bat "Yellow Submarine" uboot>newfile.txt

• Lines starting with "]" character will end up empty
• OldStr must not start with "*"

This simple menu framework parses itself for batch labels of certain signature and lists them as menu items. The self-parsing feature makes the menu generic. New menu items can be inserted by adding new function blocks without changing the menu infrastructure.

• simple and well structured
• easy to enhance
• easy to maintain

This batch sort`s text by handling the first number found in each line as real number not as text.

• In a text search 10 is less than 9, because the first letter 1 is less than 9
• In a number search 10 is greater than 9

Note: Since all files are passed into the FTP`s MGET command there might be a limit to the number of files that can be processed at once.

Embed FTP script into a batch script. Add this line at the beginning of the FTP script:

The "FTP -s:ftpscript.txt" option executes a FTP script wheres "%~f0" resolved to the name of the running batch file. "GOTO:EOF" ends the batch script and makes sure the FTP script doesn`t run as part of the batch.
Good: You end up with only one file that contains the batch script and the FTP script combined.
Minor flaw: The batch command in the first line causes an "Invalid command." error when executed in FTP context, however the FTP execution will continue.

• Single file to distribute combining batch and FTP script

This batch executed the FTP script embedded within the batch. All variables in the FTP script will be resolved.

The FOR loop extracts the FTP script into a temporary file. It the ECHO command is being CALLed for each line in order to resolve the variables.

Variables can be used within the FTP script the same way as in a batch script, including any string manipulation and command line arguments like %1 %2 %~n0 %* and so on.

All batch lines start with semicolon so that they will be ignored by the FOR loop. Semicolon is the default end-of-line (EOL) character used by the FOR command.

• Rename the function
• Add proper description for the function and its arguments
• Fill in the function body
• Return desired values

A DOS batch that creates a well formatted HTML file listing the help output for all DOS commands.

• Shows progress indication while creating the command reference
• Outputs an command index with page links
• Outputs the command help text for each DOS command documented by "C:>help /?"

Date and Time functions are useful for:

• Calculations with date and time values
• Determine the age of files in days
• Determine the date difference in days

The example in this section demonstrates how to use the :ftime function to determine the age in days of all files in the temp directory.

Two variables are used

• tnow - stores the current day in julian days format by calling :jdate
• tfile - stores the file date in julian days format by calling :ftime

Using Delayed Expansion and exclamation marks around environment variables ensures that the `tfile`variable is substituted properly during each loop. Read more about this behavior in the SET command help (bottom half of the help text).

Embedding SQL script within a batch script is just as easy. The following batch script executes itself in SQL context. The trick is the GOTO command in the first line of the script. When executing GOTO START in batch context than the command processor will jump to the label ":START" and execute the batch script. The batch script will then run the OSQL.EXE using the batch file itself as SQL file argument to be executed. When subsequently executing the GOTO START line in SQL context, the query language processor will jump to the label "START:" and execute the SQL queries. In fact the file can be opened and executed in Query Analyzer as is, since the batch script in the file looks like a comment to the query language processor.

Now we can embed SQL queries into a batch file. But how can we pass arguments from the batch script into SQL? This can be done using a temporary table. Temporary tables live as long as the connection to the SQL Server. But how can we fill a temporary table with runtime data and execute the embedded SQL script without creating two separate SQL Server connections by calling OSQL.EXE twice? The trick is that OSQL allows to use the -i and -q option at the same time whereas:

• -q specifies a query string to be executed
• -i specifies a filename with SQL syntax to be executed

It`s nice not to have to type "perl -s Batch4Parl.pl" into the command line and rather being able to just double click a Perl script in Explorer. The trick of renaming the Perl .pl to a batch .bat file and wrapping a batch script around the Perl script is well known under Perl monks. However the solution I have seen so far needed batch code before and after the Perl script where as the solution presented below only needs some lines of DOS at the top. The added DOS script is generic and works independent from the name of the file.

When running the batch the DOS command interpreter will read the first lines and execute the file itself in Perl context.

This example works just as the previews one but will wait 4 seconds before the application finally closes. This is just enough time to inspect the screen output before the window vanishes. The delay can probably be done much easier in Perl, but somebody just starting on Perl might find this still useful.