How can I make an are you sure prompt in a Windows batchfile

Question

I have a batch file that automates copying a bunch of files from one place to the other and back for me  Only thing is as much as it helps me I keep accidentally selecting that command off my command buffer and mass overwriting uncommited changes    What code would I need for my  bat file to make it say  are you sure   and make me type  y  before it ran the rest of the file  If anything but  y  is typed it should exit execution on that line   Edit Nov 27 Ok I marked this unanswered again because I still can t figure it out  When I call  exit   it closes cmd exe which is not what I want  All this because Windows implemented command buffer wrong  differently than what I am used to at least

User · Answer

try the CHOICE command  e g   CHOICE  C YNC  M  Press Y for Yes  N for No or C for Cancel

User · Answer

The choice command is not available everywhere  With newer Windows versions  the set command has the  p option you can get user input  SET  P variable  promptString    see set    for more info

User · Answer

There are two commands available for user prompts on Windows command line   set with option  P available on all Windows NT versions with enabled command extensions and choice exe available by default on Windows Vista and later Windows versions for PC users and on Windows Server 2003 and later server versions of Windows   set is an internal command of Windows command processor cmd exe  The option  P to prompt a user for a string is available only with enabled command extensions which are enabled by default as otherwise nearly no batch file would work anymore nowadays  choice exe is a separate console application  external command  located in  SystemRoot  System32  File choice exe of Windows Server 2003 can be copied into directory  SystemRoot  System32 on a Windows XP machine for usage on Windows XP like many other commands not available by default on Windows XP  but available by default on Windows Server 2003  It is best practice to favor usage of CHOICE over usage of SET  P because of the following reasons   CHOICE accepts only keys  respectively characters read from STDIN  specified after option  C  and Ctrl C and Ctrl Break  and outputs an error beep if the user presses a wrong key  CHOICE does not require pressing any other key than one of the acceptable ones  CHOICE exits immediately once an acceptable key is pressed while SET  P requires that the user finishes input with RETURN or ENTER  It is possible with CHOICE to define a default option and a timeout to automatically continue with default option after some seconds without waiting for the user  The output is better on answering the prompt automatically from another batch file which calls the batch file with the prompt using something like echo Y   call PromptExample bat on using CHOICE  The evaluation of the user s choice is much easier with CHOICE because of CHOICE exits with a value according to pressed key  character  which is assigned to ERRORLEVEL which can be easily evaluated next  The environment variable used on SET  P is not defined if the user hits just key RETURN or ENTER and it was not defined before prompting the user  The used environment variable on SET   P command line keeps its current value if defined before and user presses just RETURN or  ENTER  The user has the freedom to enter anything on being prompted with SET  P including a string which results later in an exit of batch file execution by cmd because of a syntax error  or in execution of commands not included at all in the batch file on not good coded batch file  It needs some efforts to get SET  P secure against by mistake or intentionally wrong user input   Here is a prompt example using preferred CHOICE and alternatively SET  P on choice exe not available on used computer running Windows   echo off setlocal EnableExtensions DisableDelayedExpansion echo This is an example for prompting a user  echo  if exist  quot  SystemRoot  System32 choice exe quot  goto UseChoice  setlocal EnableExtensions EnableDelayedExpansion  UseSetPrompt set  quot UserChoice  quot  set  P  quot UserChoice Are you sure  Y N    quot  set  quot UserChoice  UserChoice     quot  if  I  quot  UserChoice  quot      quot N quot  endlocal  amp  goto  EOF if  I not  quot  UserChoice  quot      quot Y quot  goto UseSetPrompt endlocal goto Continue   UseChoice  SystemRoot  System32 choice exe  C YN  N  M  quot Are you sure  Y N   quot  if not errorlevel 1 goto UseChoice if errorlevel 2 goto  EOF   Continue echo So your are sure  Okay  let s go     rem More commands can be added here  endlocal  Note  This batch file uses command extensions which are not available on Windows 95 98 ME using command com instead of cmd exe as command interpreter  The command line set  quot UserChoice  UserChoice     quot  is added to make it possible to call this batch file with echo Y   call PromptExample bat on Windows NT4 2000 XP and do not require the usage of echo Y  call PromptExample bat  It deletes all spaces from string read from STDIN before running the two string comparisons  echo Y   call PromptExample bat results in YSPACE getting assigned to environment variable UserChoice  That would result on processing the prompt twice because of  quot Y  quot  is neither case-insensitive equal  quot N quot  nor  quot Y quot  without deleting first all spaces  So UserChoice with YSPACE as value would result in running the prompt a second time with option N as defined as default in the batch file on second prompt execution which next results in an unexpected exit of batch file processing  Yes  secure usage of SET  P is really tricky  isn t it  choice exe exits with 0 in case of the user presses Ctrl C or Ctrl Break and answers next the question output by cmd exe to exit batch file processing with N for no  For that reason the condition if not errorlevel 1 goto UserChoice is added to prompt the user once again for a definite answer on the prompt by batch file code with Y or N  Thanks to dialer for the information about this possible special use case  The first line below the batch label  UseSetPrompt could be written also as  set  quot UserChoice N quot   In this case the user choice input is predefined with N which means the user can hit just RETURN or ENTER  or Ctrl C or Ctrl Break and next N  to use the default choice  The prompt text is output by command SET as written in the batch file  So the prompt text should end usually with a space character  The command CHOICE removes from prompt text all trailing normal spaces and horizontal tabs and then adds itself a space to the prompt text  Therefore the prompt text of command CHOICE can be written without or with a space at end  That does not make a difference on displayed prompt text on execution  The order of user prompt evaluation could be also changed completely as suggested by dialer   echo off setlocal EnableExtensions DisableDelayedExpansion echo This is an example for prompting a user  echo  if exist  quot  SystemRoot  System32 choice exe quot  goto UseChoice  setlocal EnableExtensions EnableDelayedExpansion  UseSetPrompt set  quot UserChoice  quot  set  P  quot UserChoice Are you sure  Y N    quot  set  quot UserChoice  UserChoice     quot  if  I not  quot  UserChoice  quot      quot Y quot  endlocal  amp  goto  EOF endlocal goto Continue   UseChoice  SystemRoot  System32 choice exe  C YN  N  M  quot Are you sure  Y N   quot  if not errorlevel 2 if errorlevel 1 goto Continue goto  EOF   Continue echo So your are sure  Okay  let s go     endlocal  This code results in continuation of batch file processing below the batch label  Continue if the user pressed definitely key Y  In all other cases the code for N is executed resulting in an exit of batch file processing with this code independent on user pressed really that key  or entered something different intentionally or by mistake  or pressed Ctrl C or Ctrl Break and decided next on prompt output by cmd to not cancel the processing of the batch file  For even more details on usage of SET  P and CHOICE for prompting user for a choice from a list of options see answer on How to stop Windows command interpreter from quitting batch file execution on an incorrect user input  Some more hints   IF compares the two strings left and right of the comparison operator with including the double quotes  So case-insensitive compared is not the value of UserChoice with N and Y  but the value of UserChoice surrounded by  quot  with  quot N quot  and  quot Y quot   The IF comparison operators EQU and NEQ are designed primary for comparing two integers in range -2147483648 to 2147483647 and not for comparing two strings  EQU and NEQ work also for strings comparisons  but result on comparing strings in double quotes after a useless attempt to convert left string to an integer  EQU and NEQ can be used only with enabled command extensions  The comparison operators for string comparisons are    and not        which work even with disabled command extensions as even command com of MS-DOS and Windows 95 98 ME already supported them  For more details on IF comparison operators see Symbol equivalent to NEQ  LSS  GTR  etc  in Windows batch files  The command goto  EOF requires enabled command extensions to really exit batch file processing  For more details see Where does GOTO  EOF return to   For understanding the used commands and how they work  open a command prompt window  execute there the following commands  and read entirely all help pages displayed for each command very carefully   choice    echo    endlocal    goto    if    set    setlocal     See also   This answer for details about the commands SETLOCAL and ENDLOCAL  Why is no string output with  echo  var   after using  set var   text  on command line  It explains the reason for using syntax set  quot variable value quot  on assigning a string to an environment variable  Single line with multiple commands using Windows batch file for details on if errorlevel X behavior and  operator  amp   Microsoft documentation for using command redirection operators explaining redirection operator   and handle STDIN  Wikipedia article about Windows Environment Variables for an explanation of SystemRoot  DosTips forum topic ECHO  FAILS to give text or blank line - Instead use ECHO

User · Answer

You can consider using a UI confirmation  With yesnopopup bat  echo off  for  f  quot tokens   delims  quot      in   yesnopopup bat   do       set  quot result     quot     if  i result  no       echo user rejected the script     exit  b 1     echo continue  rem --- other commands --  the user will see the following and depending on the choice the script will continue   with absolutely the same script you can use also iexpYNbutton bat which will produce similar popup  With buttons bat you can try the following script   echo off  for  f  quot tokens   delims  quot      in   buttons bat  quot Yep  quot   quot Nope  quot     do       set  quot result     quot     if  i result  2       echo user rejected the script     exit  b 1     echo continue  rem --- other commands --  and the user will see

User · Answer

Here is a simple example which I use in a backup   bat   batch  script on Windows 10  which allows me to have different options when making backups         choice set  P c Do you want to rsync the archives to someHost Y N   if  I   c   EQU  Y  goto  syncthefiles if  I   c   EQU  N  goto  doonotsyncthefiles goto  choice   syncthefiles echo rsync files to somewhere     bash -c  rsync -vaz  mnt d Archive Backup  user host  home user Backup blabla   echo done   doonotsyncthefiles echo Backup Complete         You can have as many as you need of these blocks

User · Answer

Here s my go-to method for a yes no answer   It s case-insensitive also   This just checks for the errors given by the input and sets the choice variable to whatever you require so it can be used below in the code    echo off choice  M   Opt 1   Do you want to continue  Yes No   if errorlevel 255     echo Error     else if errorlevel 2     set  YourChoice will not      else if errorlevel 1     set  YourChoice will      else if errorlevel 0     goto  EOF       echo  YourChoice    pause

User · Answer

You want something like    echo off setlocal  PROMPT SET  P AREYOUSURE Are you sure  Y  N    IF  I   AREYOUSURE   NEQ  Y  GOTO END  echo     rest of file        END endlocal

User · Answer

First  open the terminal   Then  type  cd   touch  sure chmod 700  sure   Next  open  sure and paste this inside      bin bash --init-file PS1   gt    alias y        1     exit   alias n  Taskkill  IM  Terminal   f  echo    echo  Are you sure  Answer y or n   echo      After that  close the file      sure   ENTER COMMAND HERE   This will give you a prompt of are you sure before continuing the command

User · Answer

Open terminal  Type the following  echo gt sure sh chmod 700 sure sh   Paste this inside sure sh     bin bash  echo -n  Are you sure   Y n    read yn  if     yn     n     then     exit 1 fi  exit 0   Close sure sh and type this in terminal   alias sure    sure amp  amp     Now  if you type sure before typing the command it will give you an are you sure prompt before continuing the command    Hope this is helpful

User · Answer

Here a bit easier    echo off set  p var Are You Sure  Y N    if  var    Y goto     if not  var    Y exit   or   echo off echo Are You Sure  Y N  choice  c YN if  errorlevel   1 goto yes if  errorlevel   2 goto no  yes echo yes goto  EOF  no echo no

User · Answer

If you want to the batch program to exit back to the prompt and not close the prompt  A K A cmd exe  you can use  exit  b    This may help   set  p  sure  Are you sure     The underscore is used to ensure that  sure  is not an enviroment   varible if  I NOT   sure    y      the  I makes it so you can exit  b   else     Any other modifications        Or if you don t want to use as many lines     Set  p  sure  Are you sure   if  I NOT   sure    y  exit  b   Any other modifications and commands    Hope this helps

[windows] How can I make an "are you sure" prompt in a Windows batchfile?

Examples related to windows

Examples related to batch-file

Examples related to cmd