IF OR IF in a windows batch file

Question

Is there a way to write an IF  OR IF  conditional statement in a windows batch-file    For example   IF   var       1  OR IF   var       2  ECHO TRUE

User · Accepted Answer

The zmbq solution is good  but cannot be used in all situations  such as inside a block of code like a FOR DO      loop  An alternative is to use an indicator variable  Initialize it to be undefined  and then define it only if any one of the OR conditions is true  Then use IF DEFINED as a final test - no need to use delayed expansion  FOR       DO     set  quot TRUE  quot    IF cond1 set TRUE 1   IF cond2 set TRUE 1   IF defined TRUE               else                  You could add the ELSE IF logic that arasmussen uses on the grounds that it might perform a wee bit faster if the 1st condition is true  but I never bother  Addendum - This is a duplicate question with nearly identical answers to Using an OR in an IF statement WinXP Batch Script Final addendum - I almost forgot my favorite technique to test if a variable is any one of a list of case insensitive values  Initialize a test variable containing a delimitted list of acceptable values  and then use search and replace to test if your variable is within the list  This is very fast and uses minimal code for an arbitrarily long list  It does require delayed expansion  or else the CALL   VAR   trick   Also the test is CASE INSENSITIVE  set  quot TEST  val1 val2 val3 val4 val5  quot  if  quot  TEST   VAR     quot  neq  quot  TEST  quot   echo true  else  echo false   The above can fail if VAR contains    so the test is not fool-proof  If doing the test within a block where delayed expansion is needed to access current value of VAR then for     do     set  quot TEST  val1 val2 val3 val4 val5  quot    for  f   A in   quot   VAR   quot   do if  quot  TEST   A   quot  neq  quot  TEST  quot   echo true  else  echo false     FOR options like  quot delims  quot  might be needed depending on expected values within VAR The above strategy can be made reliable even with   in VAR by adding a bit more code  set  quot TEST  val1 val2 val3 val4 val5  quot  if  quot  TEST   VAR     quot  neq  quot  TEST  quot  if  quot  TEST   VAR     VAR   quot    quot  TEST  quot  echo true  But now we have lost the ability of providing an ELSE clause unless we add an indicator variable  The code has begun to look a bit  quot ugly quot   but I think it is the best performing reliable method for testing if VAR is any one of an arbitrary number of case-insensitive options  Finally there is a simpler version that I think is slightly slower because it must perform one IF for each value  Aacini provided this solution in a comment to the accepted answer in the before mentioned link for   A in   quot val1 quot   quot val2 quot   quot val3 quot   quot val4 quot   quot val5 quot   do if  quot  VAR  quot     A echo true  The list of values cannot include the   or   characters  and the values and  VAR  should not contain quotes  Quotes lead to problems if the  VAR  also contains spaces or special characters like     amp  etc  One other limitation with this solution is it does not provide the option for an ELSE clause unless you add an indicator variable  Advantages are it can be case sensitive or insensitive depending on presence or absence of IF  I option

User · Answer

Never got exist to work   I use  if not exist g xyz what goto h  Else xcopy c current files g bu current There are modifiers  a etc  Not sure which ones  Laptop in shop  And computer in office  I am not there   Never got batch files to work above Windows XP

User · Answer

If  x   1   If  y   1      both are equal to 1        That s for checking if multiple variables equal value   Here s for either variable   If  x   1      true   If  x   0   If  y   1      true     If  x   0   If  y   0      False       I just thought of that off the top if my head   I could compact it more

User · Answer

Thanks for this post  it helped me a lot   Dunno if it can help but I had the issue and thanks to you I found what I think is another way to solve it based on this boolean equivalence    A or B  is the same as  not not A and not B                               Thus   IF   var       1  OR IF   var       2  ECHO TRUE   Becomes   IF not   var       1  IF not   var       2  ECHO FALSE

User · Answer

While dbenham s answer is pretty good  relying on IF DEFINED can get you in loads of trouble if the variable you re checking isn t an environment variable  Script variables don t get this special treatment   While this might seem like some ludicrous undocumented BS  doing a simple shell query of IF with IF    reveals that      The DEFINED conditional works just like EXIST except it takes an   environment variable name and returns true if the environment variable   is defined    In regards to answering this question  is there a reason to not just use a simple flag after a series of evaluations  That seems the most flexible OR check to me  both in regards to underlying logic and readability  For example   Set Evaluated True false  IF  condition 1   true  Set Evaluated True true  IF  some string    desired result   Set Evaluated True true  IF  set numerical variable  EQ  desired numerical value   Set Evaluated True true   IF  Evaluated True   true  echo This is where you do your passing logic  ELSE  echo This is where you do your failing logic    Obviously  they can be any sort of conditional evaluation  but I m just sharing a few examples   If you wanted to have it all on one line  written-wise  you could just chain them together with  amp  amp  like   Set Evaluated True false  IF  condition 1   true  Set Evaluated True true   amp  amp  IF  some string    desired result   Set Evaluated True true   amp  amp  IF  set numerical variable  EQ  desired numerical value   Set Evaluated True true   IF  Evaluated True   true  echo This is where you do your passing logic  ELSE  echo This is where you do your failing logic

User · Answer

I don t think so  Just use two IFs and GOTO the same label   IF cond1 GOTO foundit IF cond2 GOTO foundit  ECHO Didn t found it GOTO end   foundit ECHO Found it    end

User · Answer

It s possible to use a function  which evaluates the OR logic and returns a single value    echo off set var1 3 set var2 5 call  logic or orResult    var1     4      var2     5   if  orResult   1        echo At least one expression is true   ELSE echo All expressions are false exit  b   logic or  lt resultVar gt  expression1   expr2      expr-n   SETLOCAL set  logic or result 0  set  logic or resultVar   1    logic or loop  if    2      goto  logic or end  if   2 set  logic or result 1  SHIFT  goto  logic or loop    logic or end       ENDLOCAL    set   logic or resultVar   logic or result     exit  b

User · Answer

A much faster alternative I usually use is as follows  as I can  quot or quot  an arbitrary number of conditions that can fit in variable space      Echo off   Set  quot  Match  1 2 3  quot     Set  a  quot var 3 quot   Echo   Match  Find  quot   var   quot  gt nul        REM Code for a false condition goes here    amp  amp      REM code for a true condition goes here

User · Answer

I realize this question is old  but I wanted to post an alternate solution in case anyone else  like myself  found this thread while having the same question   I was able to work around the lack of an OR operator by echoing the variable and using findstr to validate   for  f   v in   echo  var     findstr  x  c  1   c  2    do       if  errorlevel  equ 0 echo true

User · Answer

Even if this question is a little older   If you want to use if cond1 or cond 2 - you should not use complicated loops or stuff like that   Simple provide both ifs after each other combined with goto - that s an implicit or     thats an implicit IF cond1 OR cond2 OR cond3 if cond1 GOTO doit if cond2 GOTO doit if cond3 GOTO doit    thats our else  GOTO end   doit   echo  doing it    end   Without goto but an  inplace  action  you might execute the action 3 times  if ALL conditions are matching

User · Answer

Realizing this is a bit of an old question  the responses helped me come up with a solution to testing command line arguments to a batch file  so I wanted to post my solution as well in case anyone else was looking for a similar solution   First thing that I should point out is that I was having trouble getting IF     ELSE statements to work inside of a FOR     DO clause  Turns out  thanks to dbenham for inadvertently pointing this out in his examples  the ELSE statement cannot be on a separate line from the closing parens   So instead of this   FOR     DO       IF                 ELSE             Which is my preference for readability and aesthetic reasons  you have to do this   FOR     DO       IF             ELSE             Now the ELSE statement doesn t return as an unrecognized command   Finally  here s what I was attempting to do - I wanted to be able to pass several arguments to a batch file in any order  ignoring case  and reporting failing on undefined arguments passed in  So here s my solution      ECHO OFF SET ARG1 FALSE SET ARG2 FALSE SET ARG3 FALSE SET ARG4 FALSE SET ARGS  arg1 Arg1 ARG1 arg2 Arg2 ARG2 arg3 Arg3 ARG3  SET ARG   FOR   A IN      DO       SET TRUE      FOR   B in  ARGS  DO           IF    A        B  SET TRUE 1               IF DEFINED TRUE           SET   A TRUE           ELSE           SET ARG   A         GOTO UNDEFINED                  ECHO  ARG1  ECHO  ARG2  ECHO  ARG3  ECHO  ARG4  GOTO END   UNDEFINED ECHO   ARG   is not an acceptable argument  GOTO END   END   Note  this will only report on the first failed argument  So if the user passes in more than one unacceptable argument  they will only be told about the first until it s corrected  then the second  etc

User · Answer

A simple  quot FOR quot  can be used in a single line to use an  quot or quot  condition  FOR   a in  item1 item2      DO IF  condition involving   a   execute command     Applied to your case  FOR   a in  1 2  DO IF  var     a ECHO TRUE  Suppress executing twice A comment pointed out that  execute command  may be encountered twice  To avoid this  you can use a goto after the first encounter  FOR   a in  1 2  DO IF  var     a       ECHO TRUE     goto  continue    continue    If you think there s a possibility that  execute command  might be executed twice and you don t want that  you can just add  amp  amp  goto  eof  FOR   a in  1 2  DO IF  var     a ECHO TRUE  amp  amp  goto  eof  Much simpler  and still on a single line

User · Answer

There is no IF  lt arg gt  OR or ELIF or ELSE IF in Batch  however     Try nesting the other IF s inside the ELSE of the previous IF   IF  lt arg gt               ELSE       IF  lt arg gt                         ELSE           IF  lt arg gt                               ELSE

User · Answer

The goal can be achieved by using IFs indirectly   Below is an example of a complex expression that can be written quite concisely and logically in a CMD batch  without incoherent labels and GOTOs   Code blocks between    brackets are handled by CMD as a  pathetic  kind of subshell  Whatever exit code comes out of a block will be used to determine the true false value the block plays in a larger boolean expression  Arbitrarily large boolean expressions can be built with these code blocks   Simple example  Each block is resolved to true  i e  ERRORLEVEL   0 after the last statement in the block has executed    false  until the value of the whole expression has been determined or control jumps out  e g  via GOTO       DIR c  xsgdde  w      DIR c    w    amp  amp   ECHO - BINGO -    Complex example  This solves the problem raised initially  Multiple statements are possible in each block but in the          expression it s preferable to be concise so that it s as readable as possible    is an escape char in CMD batches and when placed at the end of a line it will escape the EOL and instruct CMD to continue reading the current batch of statements on the next line    ECHO OFF SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION         CALL  ProcedureType1 a b                CALL  ProcedureType2 sgd                    CALL  ProcedureType1 c c           amp  amp            ECHO - BINGO -         GOTO  EOF       ECHO - no bingo for you - GOTO  EOF   ProcedureType1     IF    1        2   EXIT  B 0  ELSE  EXIT  B 1  GOTO  EOF  this line is decorative as it s never reached    ProcedureType2     ECHO  ax xa xx aa  FINDSTR  I  L  C     1   gt nul GOTO  EOF

[windows] IF... OR IF... in a windows batch file

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