Adding flags to a batch script

Question

I'm writing a Batch script that will run on a directory. I want to be able to add a flag (such as -r or /r or something like that) that will make the script run the folder tree instead of the single directory. Is it possible to add flag options using batch?

Thanks

Hildebrandt

command line parameters. Did you bother Googling this? – Lantern

possible duplicate of Windows Bat file optional argument parsing – Tutankhamen

Answer 1

Certainly it's possible. Command line parameters are passed in to your batch file as %1, %2, etc. (%0 is the name of the batch file.)

IF "%1"=="/r" ECHO You passed the /r flag.

Use SHIFT to drop the first argument and move all the others over by one. You can use that to get a bit fancier if you want to allow that /r to be anywhere in the command line. For example:

:processargs
SET ARG=%1
IF DEFINED ARG (
    IF "%ARG%"=="/r" ECHO You passed the /r flag.
    SHIFT
    GOTO processargs
)

Or use %* (which expands to the entire argument list) in a FOR loop like this:

FOR %%A IN (%*) DO (
    IF "%%A"=="/r" ECHO You passed the /r flag.
)

Warsle

You can also process arguments as %* with a for loop. Example – Lantern

Why the SET ARG=%1, IF DEFINED ARG rather than IF NOT '%1'==''? – Offenseless

@Sinjai: personal preference. :-) I always like to name variables so the intent is clear, and similarly "if defined" communicates the intent better than a comparison. – Warsle

@Nate: I figured, just making sure I didn't miss something. It's probably not a bad rule of thumb anyway, as often I find myself consistently interested in, say, %~1 and named variables allow for substrings, etc. Though these are all concepts I was not familiar with when I made that comment! – Offenseless