Commenting multiple lines in DOS batch file

Question

I have written huge MS DOS Batch file  To test this batch file I need to execute some lines only and want to hide comment out remaining  I have some existing comment lines starting with    hence I cannot use    anymore as it will scramble all comments  How can I solve this problem

User · Accepted Answer

You can use a goto to skip over code   goto comment    skip this     comment

User · Answer

break     code that cannot contain non paired closing bracket     While the goto solution is a good option it will not work within brackets  including FOR and IF commands  But this will  Though you should be careful about closing brackets and invalid syntax for FOR and IF commands because they will be parsed   Update  The update in the dbenham s answer gave me some ideas  First - there are two different cases where we can need multi line comments - in a bracket s context where GOTO cannot be used and outside it  Inside brackets context we can use another brackets if there s a condition which prevents the code to be executed Though the code thede will still be parsed and some syntax errors will be detected  FOR IF  improperly closed brackets  wrong parameter expansion     So if it is possible it s better to use GOTO   Though it is not possible to create a macro variable used as a label - but is possible to use macros for bracket s comments Still two tricks can be used make the GOTO  comments more symetrical and more pleasing  at least for me   For this I ll use two tricks - 1  you can put a single symbol in front of a label and goto will still able  to find it  I have no idea why is this My guues it is searching for a drive   2  you can put a single    at the end of a variable name and a replacement subtring feature will be not triggered  even under enabled extensions   Wich combined with the macros for brackets comments can make the both cases to look almost the same   So here are the examples  in the order I like them most    With rectangular brackets    echo off    GOTO comment macro set     goto         brackets comment macros set    rem       amp  set          testing echo not commented 1         multi    line   comment outside of brackets       echo not commented 2         second multi    line   comment outside of brackets         GOTO macro cannot be used inside for for   a in  first second  do       echo first not commented line of the   a execution                 multi line         comment             echo second not commented line of the   a execution     With curly brackets    echo off    GOTO comment macro set     goto         brackets comment macros set    rem       amp  set          testing echo not commented 1         multi    line   comment outside of brackets       echo not commented 2         second multi    line   comment outside of brackets         GOTO macro cannot be used inside for loop for   a in  first second  do       echo first not commented line of the   a execution                 multi line         comment             echo second not commented line of the   a execution     With parentheses    echo off    GOTO comment macro set     goto         brackets comment macros set    rem       amp  set          testing echo not commented 1         multi    line   comment outside of brackets       echo not commented 2         second multi    line   comment outside of brackets         GOTO macro cannot be used inside for loop for   a in  first second  do       echo first not commented line of the   a execution                 multi line         comment             echo second not commented line of the   a execution     Mixture between powershell and C styles   lt  cannot be used because the redirection is with higher prio   cannot be used because of the         echo off    GOTO comment macro set      goto          brackets comment macros set     rem       amp  set           testing echo not commented 1          multi    line   comment outside of brackets        echo not commented 2          second multi    line   comment outside of brackets          GOTO macro cannot be used inside for loop for   a in  first second  do       echo first not commented line of the   a execution                  multi line         comment              echo second not commented line of the   a execution     To emphase that s a comment  thought it is not so short     echo off    GOTO comment macro set  REM   goto   REM      brackets comment macros set  REM  rem       amp  set   REM       testing echo not commented 1   REM      multi    line   comment outside of brackets    REM   echo not commented 2   REM      second multi    line   comment outside of brackets    REM     GOTO macro cannot be used inside for for   a in  first second  do       echo first not commented line of the   a execution      REM           multi line         comment       REM      echo second not commented line of the   a execution

User · Answer

If you want to add REM at the beginning of each line instead of using GOTO  you can use Notepad   to do this easily following these steps    Select the block of lines hit Ctrl-Q   Repeat steps to uncomment

User · Answer

jeb  And after using this  the stderr seems to be inaccessible  No  try this    echo off 2 gt Nul 3 gt Nul 4 gt Nul     ben ali      mubarak 2 gt  amp 1    gadeffi      next       echo hello Tunisia    pause   But why it works   sorry  i answer the question in frensh     la redirection par 3  est sp  cial car elle persiste  on va l utiliser pour capturer le flux des erreurs 2  est on va le transformer en un flux persistant    l ade de 3  ceci va  nous permettre d avoir une gestion des erreur pour tout notre environement de script  par la suite si on veux recuperer le flux  stderr  il faut faire une autre redirection du handle 2  au handle 1  qui n est autre que la console

User · Answer

try this       echo off 2 gt Nul 3 gt Nul 4 gt Nul     ben ali    mubarak    gadeffi      next       echo hello Tunisia    pause

User · Answer

Just want to mention that pdub s GOTO solution is not fully correct in case  comment label appear in multiple times  I modify the code from this question as the example    ECHO OFF SET FLAG 1 IF   FLAG     1        ECHO IN THE FIRST IF        GOTO comment     ECHO  COMMENT PART 1   comment     ECHO HERE AT TD NEXT IN THE FIRST BLOCK    IF   FLAG     1        ECHO IN THE SECOND IF        GOTO comment     ECHO  COMMENT PART   comment     ECHO HERE AT TD NEXT IN THE SECOND BLOCK     The output will be  IN THE FIRST IF    HERE AT TD NEXT IN THE SECOND BLOCK   The command ECHO HERE AT TD NEXT IN THE FIRST BLOCK is skipped

User · Answer

Another option is to enclose the unwanted lines in an IF block that can never be true  if 1  0           Of course nothing within the if block will be executed  but it will be parsed  So you can t have any invalid syntax within  Also  the comment cannot contain   unless it is escaped or quoted  For those reasons the accepted GOTO solution is more reliable   The GOTO solution may also be faster   Update 2017-09-19  Here is a cosmetic enhancement to pdub s GOTO solution  I define a simple environment variable  macro  that makes the GOTO comment syntax a bit better self documenting  Although it is generally recommended that  labels are unique within a batch script  it really is OK to embed multiple comments like this within the same batch script    echo off setlocal  set  beginComment goto  endComment    beginComment  Multi-line comment 1 goes here  endComment  echo This code executes   beginComment  Multi-line comment 2 goes here  endComment  echo Done   Or you could use one of these variants of npocmaka s solution  The use of REM instead of BREAK makes the intent a bit clearer   rem        remarks    go here    rem         The space after the caret    is critical

[batch-file] Commenting multiple lines in DOS batch file

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