I want to have an executable file that will call some other programs. The way I would do this in Linux is with a simple bash script that looks like this:
#!/bin/bash
echo "running some-program"
/home/murat/some-program arg1 arg2
What's the best way to do this kind of thing under Windows?
batch files work for me. Just remove the first line in your example and it should work the same in win32 cmd line.
note - make a text file, name it with a .bat extension and use a backslash rather than a forward slash.
Take a look at PowerShell, which is the closest you will get to a true scripting language like you have in Unix. Other than that, for simple things such as simply runnning an application, take a look at Windows command script/MS-DOS batch files.
You could go with either an old school batch file (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batch_file) or you can go with a brand new shiny Windows PowerShell script (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/hubs/msh.mspx).
I use batch for simple operations and PowerShell for complex scripts that also involve data processing.
Generally, the windows command line (DOS) is considered rather impoverished compared to *nix. You could install something like Cygwin or PowerShell if you want a powerful command shell, or you could cause yourself great pain and suffering to try using DOS for all your needs. :)
I used to use batch files. And for simple examples like you gave above I still do, but more and more I have been using python to do these sorts of things. It has the added benefit of working across platforms for those rare scripts that are actually meaningful on multiple platforms.
Python is just one of many scripting languages you could use for this sort of thing. Perl, ruby, or php may be more your speed. I find that a scripting language gives me a richer and easier to understand syntax if I want to do something a little more complicated than just start a program with a few default arguments.
As long as we're suggesting *nix command-line tools, I'd recommend checking out Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com) as it emulates a *nix-like environment.
There are a number of scripting options on windows:
WScript.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
has been my win32 weapon of choice as of late.
I use a combination of CScript/JScript. Very powerful once you learn the available system objects.
The Windows NT family of Operating Systems (NT 3.51, NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Vista) have a reasonably powerful Command Shell even if it is a bit esoteric. This shell does not have the power of the typical UNIX shells however it is ubiquitous on Windows machines and it is pretty amazing what can be achieved. A great book for this is Windows NT Shell Scripting by Timothy Hill. I always found Rob van der Woude's Scripting Pages a great resource for batch files.
PowerShell is Microsoft's latest offering in this field and takes scripting to a whole new level and gives you access to all of the power of the .NET framework as well as WMI, COM and any other interface into Windows. There is a pretty steep learning curve with this but it is definitely the way to go and I think it has the potential to become one of those foundational technology skills (like RegEx, XPath etc) in the Microsoft world. A good starting point is Microsoft Windows PowerShell Technology Center but there are a huge number of resources out there for this.
Powershell. Take a look at http://www.idera.com/Products/PowerShell/">PowerShellPlus
For what it's worth, the most popular options I've seen at a certain large, Redmond based software company (in rough order of popularity):
Much less popular:
Note that Perl doesn't require an install, it only requires a few environment variable updates, so it's easy to just shove a full distro into your source control system along with other tools.
My personal preference would be to avoid batch files as much as possible, even with the most careful and rigorous of processes the benefit for the cost is just not worth it. You'll never end up with a satisfactory solution if you use batch. Perl and Javascript are tempting to use but there are troublesome fundamental deficiencies which leave a lot to be desired, without strong development guidelines these methods will more likely than not lead to low quality code.
Python and Powershell are good candidates but I'm not sufficiently adept with them and, more importantly, a lot of people aren't that familiar with them. Perhaps that's not a good enough excuse. Tiny exes can have many problems as well and require discipline and process in order to ensure that the source is always checked in, that the exes conform to certain UI norms (e.g. they have useful help if you run -? or /?), that they have an obvious owner, that the process for updating the exes is discoverable, etc.
In general I think I prefer tiny .exes built with C# because I get a good combination of relatively low overhead with the ability to do quality development. I'm not sure this would be a good policy in general, I know I'll make sure my tools conform to certain best practices that avoid some of the pitfalls of .exe based tools but I'm not convinced others will be so careful. If I could decree standardization on one particular scripting technology regardless of the costs I'd probably pick Powershell, though it has a pretty steep learning curve.
As an alternative to the underpowered Windows command line, the not very Windows-friendly Cygwin or the quirky and slow Powershell, you might consider Hamilton C shell. I am the author, so of course I'm possibly biased, but I am a real person and I do care about trying to make my customers happy. Hamilton C shell is a complete recreation of the UNIX C shell and utilities but all of it's from scratch for Windows and, as such, it's designed to follow the Windows conventions for filenames and so on. I just released a new version this summer for Vista that includes both 32-bit and 64-bit builds. (The 64-bit version is about 2x to 3x as fast as the 32-bit version.) There's a free demo, so you can try before you buy.