batch language tutorials - running simple programs that rely on .bat file

Question

I am just starting to get a handle on batch programming.

To date, I've been copy/pasting into the MS-DOS command prompt from a text editor. Some of these copy pastes are getting large. Im sure there is a better way to go about this, ie. writing a line in command prompt that calls other text files (effectively doing the work of copy pasting).

Are these external files going to be .bat (which are just text that could also be put directly into the command prompt?) or .txt or something else?

I am mainly looking into this so that I can get into reusing code and getting into looping. Are there any tutorials someone would recommend to get my acquainted with these topics?

Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

You can name a text file .bat or .cmd (the latter if you know it's only usable as a Windows batch file) and put commands into it, line by line.

You can run such files by typing their name at the command prompt when you're in the directory where they reside (or if they are contained in one of the PATH directories).

By default the behavior will match pretty much exactly with what you would type by hand. You'll see what commands are executed as well as their output. For example the following batch file (saved as test.cmd here)

echo Hello World
dir /b *.cmd

yields the following output when run

> echo Hello World
Hello World

> dir /b *.cmd
date.cmd
foo.cmd
test.cmd
x.cmd
y.cmd

You can suppress the output of the command being run by including the line

echo off

in your batch file. Prefix it with an @ to suppress command output for that line in particular, but ever subsequent command won't be echoed:

@echo off

If other concrete questions arise, feel free to ask.