• Overview
• Part 1 – Getting Started
• Part 2 – Variables
• Part 3 – Return Codes
• Part 4 – stdin, stdout, stderr
• Part 5 – If/Then Conditionals
• Part 6 – Loops
• Part 7 – Functions
• Part 8 – Parsing Input
• Part 9 – Logging
• Part 10 – Advanced Tricks

Computers are all about 1’s and 0’s, right? So, we need a way to handle when some condition is 1, or else do something different when it’s 0.

The good news is DOS has pretty decent support for if/then/else conditions.

Checking that a File or Folder Exists

IF EXIST "temp.txt" ECHO found

Or the converse:

IF NOT EXIST "temp.txt" ECHO not found

Both the true condition and the false condition:

IF EXIST "temp.txt" (
    ECHO found
) ELSE (
    ECHO not found
)

NOTE: It’s a good idea to always quote both operands (sides) of any IF check. This avoids nasty bugs when a variable doesn’t exist, which causes the the operand to effectively disappear and cause a syntax error.

Checking If A Variable Is Not Set

IF "%var%"=="" (SET var=default value)

Or

IF NOT DEFINED var (SET var=default value)

Checking If a Variable Matches a Text String

SET var=Hello, World!

IF "%var%"=="Hello, World!" (
    ECHO found
)

Or with a case insensitive comparison

IF /I "%var%"=="hello, world!" (
    ECHO found
)

Artimetic Comparisons

SET /A var=1

IF /I "%var%" EQU "1" ECHO equality with 1

IF /I "%var%" NEQ "0" ECHO inequality with 0

IF /I "%var%" GEQ "1" ECHO greater than or equal to 1

IF /I "%var%" LEQ "1" ECHO less than or equal to 1

Checking a Return Code

IF /I "%ERRORLEVEL%" NEQ "0" (
    ECHO execution failed
)

<< Part 4 – stdin, stdout, stderr Part 6 – Loops >>