How do I request and receive user input in a bat and use it to run a certain program

Question

This is what I have so far   echo off  Ask echo Would you like to use developer mode  Y N  set INPUT  set  P INPUT Type input      If  INPUT    y  goto yes  If  INPUT    n  goto no If  INPUT    Y  goto yes If  INPUT    N  goto no  yes java -jar lib RSBot-4030 jar -dev echo Starting RSbot in developer mode  no java -jar lib RSBot-4030 jar echo Starting RSbot in regular mode pause   Either way if the user enters y or n it always runs in -dev mode   How do I make it run in -dev mode if the answer is yes  and regular mode if the answer is no  Also  how do I make it ask again if the input isn t Y  N  y  or n

User · Answer

Add quotation marks       around the  INPUT  so it looks like this   If   INPUT       y  goto yes If   INPUT       n  goto no If   INPUT       Y  goto yes If   INPUT       N  goto no

User · Answer

If the input is  say  N  your IF lines evaluate like this   If N   y  goto yes  If N   n  goto no       That is  you are comparing N with  y   then  n  etc  including  N   You are never going to get a match unless the user somehow decides to input  N  or  y   i e  either of the four characters  but enclosed in double quotes    So you need either to remove   from around y  n  Y and N or put them around  INPUT  in your conditional statements  I would recommend the latter  because that way you would be escaping at least some of the characters that have special meaning in batch scripts  if the user managed to type them in   So  this is what you should get   If   INPUT     y  goto yes  If   INPUT     n  goto no If   INPUT     Y  goto yes If   INPUT     N  goto no   By the way  you could reduce the number of conditions by applying the  I switch to the IF statement  like this   If  I   INPUT     y  goto yes  If  I   INPUT     n  goto no   The  I switch makes the comparisons case-insensitive  and so you don t need separate checks for different-case strings   One other issue is that  after the development mode command is executed  there s no jumping over the other command  and so  if the user agrees to run Java in the development mode  he ll get it run both in the development mode and the non-development mode  So maybe you need to add something like this to your script        yes java -jar lib RSBot-4030 jar -dev echo Starting RSbot in developer mode goto cont  no java -jar lib RSBot-4030 jar echo Starting RSbot in regular mode  cont pause   Finally  to address the issue of processing incorrect input  you could simply add another  unconditional  goto command just after the conditional statements  just before the yes label  namely goto Ask  to return to the beginning of your script where the prompt is displayed and the input is requested  or you could also add another ECHO command before the jump  explaining that the input was incorrect  something like this    echo off  Ask echo Would you like to use developer mode  Y N  set INPUT  set  P INPUT Type input      If  I   INPUT     y  goto yes  If  I   INPUT     n  goto no echo Incorrect input   goto Ask  yes         Note  Some of the issues mentioned here have also been addressed by  xmjx in their answer  which I fully acknowledge

User · Answer

echo off setlocal SET AREYOUSURE   N  PROMPT set  P AREYOUSURE Update Release Files  Y N   if  I  AREYOUSURE  NEQ Y GOTO END set  P AREYOUSURE Are You Sure you want to Update Release Files  Y N   if  I  AREYOUSURE  NEQ Y GOTO END  echo Copying New Files   END   This is code I use regularly  I have noticed in the examples in this blog that quotes are used  If the test line is changed to use quotes the test is invalid   if  I  AREYOUSURE  NEQ  Y  GOTO END   I have tested on XP  Vista  Win7 and Win8  All fail when quotes are used

User · Answer

try this for comparision  if   INPUT     y

User · Answer

Here is a working example    echo off  ask  echo echo Would you like to use developer mode  Y N  set INPUT  set  P INPUT Type input      If  I   INPUT     y  goto yes  If  I   INPUT     n  goto no goto ask  yes  echo you select yes goto exit  no  echo you select no goto exit  exit  pause

User · Answer

Depending on the version of Windows you might find the use of the  Choice  option to be helpful   It is not supported in most if not all x64 versions as far as I can tell  A handy substitution called Choice vbs along with examples of use can be found on SourceForge under the name Choice zip

User · Answer

I have improved batch file with yes or no prompt. If user enter any character except y and n , then it will again prompt user for valid input. It Works for me.

    @echo off

    :ConfirmBox 
        set /P c= Are you sure want to contine (y/n)?

    if /I "%c%" EQU "Y" (
    goto :FnYes 
    ) else if /I "%c%" EQU "N" ( 
    goto :FnNo
    ) else ( 
    goto :InValid 
    )


:FnYes
     echo You have entered Y
     goto :END

:FnNo
     echo You have entered N
     goto :END

:InValid
     echo Invalid selection. Enter Y or N
     goto :ConfirmBox

:END
    pause
    exit

/I in if condition will validate both lowercase and uppercase characters.

User · Answer

I don t know the platform you re doing this on but I assume Windows due to the  bat extension   Also I don t have a way to check this but this seems like the batch processor skips the If lines due to some errors and then executes the one with -dev   You could try this by chaning the two jump targets   yes and  no  along with the code  If then the line without -dev is executed you know your If lines are erroneous   If so  please check if    is really the right way to do a comparison in  bat files   Also  judging from the way bash does this stuff   foo   y  might evaluate to true only if  foo includes the quotes  So maybe   foo    y  is the way to go

User · Answer

i just do    set  p input  yes or no if  input   yes echo you clicked yes if  input   no echo you clicked no pause

[input] How do I request and receive user input in a .bat and use it to run a certain program?

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