Can I have an IF block in DOS batch file

Question

In a DOS batch file we can only have 1 line if statement body  I think I found somewhere that I could use    for an if block just like the    used in C-like programming languages  but it is not executing the statements when I try this  No error message either  This my code   if  GPMANAGER FOUND   true echo GP Manager is up goto Continue7   echo GP Manager is down  Continue7   Strangely neither  GP Manager is up  nor  GP Manager is down  gets printed when I run the batch file

User · Accepted Answer

You can indeed place create a block of statements to execute after a conditional. But you have the syntax wrong. The parentheses must be used exactly as shown:

if <statement> (
    do something
) else (
    do something else
)

However, I do not believe that there is any built-in syntax for else-if statements. You will unfortunately need to create nested blocks of if statements to handle that.

Secondly, that %GPMANAGER_FOUND% == true test looks mighty suspicious to me. I don't know what the environment variable is set to or how you're setting it, but I very much doubt that the code you've shown will produce the result you're looking for.

The following sample code works fine for me:

@echo off

if ERRORLEVEL == 0 (
    echo GP Manager is up
    goto Continue7
)
echo GP Manager is down
:Continue7

Please note a few specific details about my sample code:

The space added between the end of the conditional statement, and the opening parenthesis.
I am setting @echo off to keep from seeing all of the statements printed to the console as they execute, and instead just see the output of those that specifically begin with echo.
I'm using the built-in ERRORLEVEL variable just as a test. Read more here

User · Answer

Instead of this goto mess  try using the ampersand  amp  or double ampersand  amp  amp   conditional to errorlevel 0  as command separators   I fixed a script snippet with this trick  to summarize  I have three batch files  one which calls the other two after having found which letters the external backup drives have been assigned  I leave the first file on the primary external drive so the calls to its backup routine worked fine  but the calls to the second one required an active drive change  The code below shows how I fixed it   for   b in  d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z  DO   if exist    b  Backup cmd    b   amp  CALL    b  Backup cmd

User · Answer

Maybe a bit late  but hope it hellps    echo off   if  ERRORLEVEL     0   msg   1st line WORKS FINE rem You can relpace msg   with any othe operation    goto Continue1    Continue1 If exist  C  Python31    msg   2nd line WORKS FINE rem You can relpace msg   with any othe operation        goto Continue2    Continue2 If exist  C  Python31 Lib site-packages PyQt4      msg   3th line WORKS FINE rem You can relpace msg   with any othe operation        goto Continue3    Continue3 msg   4th line WORKS FINE rem You can relpace msg   with any othe operation        goto Continue4    Continue4 msg    Tutto a posto  rem You can relpace msg   with any othe operation    pause

User · Answer

Logically  Cody s answer should work  However I don t think the command prompt handles a code block logically  For the life of me I can t get that to work properly with any more than a single command within the block  In my case  extensive testing revealed that all of the commands within the block are being cached  and executed simultaneously at the end of the block  This of course doesn t yield the expected results  Here is an oversimplified example   if  ERRORLEVEL   0   set var1 blue set var2 cheese set var3  var1   var2      This should provide var3 with the following value   blue cheese   but instead yields       because all 3 commands are cached and executed simultaneously upon exiting the code block    I was able to overcome this problem by re-writing the if block to only execute one command - goto - and adding a few labels  Its clunky  and I don t much like it  but at least it works   if  ERRORLEVEL   0 goto  error0 goto  endif   error0 set var1 blue set var2 cheese set var3  var1   var2    endif

User · Answer

I ran across this article in the results returned by a search related to the IF command in a batch file  and I couldn t resist the opportunity to correct the misconception that IF blocks are limited to single commands  Following is a portion of a production Windows NT command script that runs daily on the machine on which I am composing this reply       if   COPYTOOL   equ  R        WWLOGGER exe   APPDATA  WizardWrx   n0 LOG   Using RoboCopy to make a backup of  USERPROFILE  My Documents Outlook Files         TOOLPATH   SRCEPATH   DESTPATH   copyall  RCLOGSTR   m  np  r 0  tee     C  BIN ExitCodeMapper exe C  BIN ExitCodeMapper INI Robocopy   TEMP    n0 TMP  ERRORLEVEL    else       WWLOGGER exe   APPDATA  WizardWrx   n0 LOG   Using XCopy to make a backup of  USERPROFILE  My Documents Outlook Files        call  TOOLPATH     USERPROFILE  My Documents Outlook Files      USERPROFILE  My Documents Outlook Files  backups   f  m  v  y     C  BIN ExitCodeMapper exe C  BIN ExitCodeMapper INI Xcopy   TEMP    n0 TMP  ERRORLEVEL      Perhaps blocks of two or more lines applies exclusively to Windows NT command scripts   CMD files   because a search of the production scripts directory of an application that is restricted to old school batch   BAT  files  revealed only one-command blocks  Since the application has gone into extended maintenance  meaning that I am not actively involved in supporting it   I can t say whether that is because I didn t need more than one line  or that I couldn t make them work   Regardless  if the latter is true  there is a simple workaround  move the multiple lines into either a separate batch file or a batch file subroutine  I know that the latter works in both kinds of scripts

[if-statement] Can I have an IF block in DOS batch file?

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