In Windows cmd how do I prompt for user input and use the result in another command

Question

I have a Windows  bat file which I would like to accept user input and then use the results of that input as part of the call to additional commands   For example  I d like to accept a process ID from the user  and then run jstack against that ID  putting the results of the jstack call into a file  However  when I try this  it doesn t work    Here s my sample bat file contents    echo off set  p id Enter ID   echo  id  jstack  gt  jstack txt   and here s what shows up in jstack txt    Enter ID  Terminate batch job  Y N

User · Answer

Just to keep a default value of the variable. Press Enter to use default from the recent run of your .bat:

@echo off
set /p Var1=<Var1.txt
set /p Var1="Enter new value ("%Var1%") "
echo %Var1%> Var1.txt

rem YourApp %Var1%

In the first run just ignore the message about lack of file with the initial value of the variable (or do create the Var1.txt manually).

User · Answer

echo off set  p input  Write something  it will be used in the command  echo   echo  input  pause   if i get what you want  this works fine  you can use  input  in other commands too    echo off echo Write something  it will be used in the command  echo  set  p input    cls echo  input  pause

User · Answer

I have a little cmd I use when preparing pc to clients  it calls the user for input  and the rename the pc to that     ECHO  remember to run this as admin    ECHO OFF SET  P  inputname  Please enter an computername   ECHO Du intastede    inputname    ECHO  The pc will restart after this  pause  ECHO OFF wmic computersystem where name   COMPUTERNAME   call rename name    inputname    shutdown -r -f

User · Answer

set  p choice   Please Select one of the above options     echo   choice     The space after   is very important

User · Answer

Try this    echo off set  p id  Enter ID      You can then use  id  as a parameter to another batch file like jstack  id     For example   set  P id Enter id   jstack  id   gt  jstack txt

User · Answer

I am not sure if this is the case for all versions of Windows  however on the XP machine I have  I need to use the following   set  p Var1  Prompt String    Without the prompt string in quotes  I get various results depending on the text

User · Answer

echo off  start set  p var1  Enter first number    pause

User · Answer

Just added the   set  p NetworkLocation  Enter name for network   echo  NetworkLocation   gt  gt  netlist txt   sequence to my netsh batch job  It now shows me the location I respond as the point for that sample  I continuously    the output file so I know now  home    work    Starbucks   etc  Looking for clear air  I can eavulate the lowest use channels and whether there are 5 or just all 2 4 MHz WLANs around

User · Answer

Dollar signs around the variable do not work on my Vista machine  but percent signs do  Also note that a trailing space on the  set  line will show up between the prompt and user input

User · Answer

There is no documented  prompt parameter for SETX as there is for SET   If you need to prompt for an environment variable that will survive reboots  you can use SETX to store it   A variable created by SETX won t be usable until you restart the command prompt  Neatly  however  you can SETX a variable that has already been SET  even if it has the same name   This works for me in Windows 8 1 Pro   set  p UserInfo   What is your name     setx UserInfo   UserInfo      The quotation marks around the existing variable are necessary    This procedure allows you to use the temporary SET-created variable during the current session and will allow you to reuse the SETX-created variable upon reboot of the computer or restart of the CMD prompt    Edited to format code paragraphs properly

User · Answer

There are two possibilities     You forgot to put the  id  in the jstack call     jstack  id   gt  jstack txt    So the whole correct batch file should be    echo off set  p id Enter ID   echo  id  jstack  id   gt  jstack txt   And Or 2  You did put it in the code  and forgot to tell us in the question  but when you ran the batch file you hit the Enter key instead of typing an ID  say 1234     What s happening is the result of these two mistakes   jstack is supposed to be called with the id that you supply it    But in your case  according to the code you supplied in the question  you called it without any variable  You wrote   jstack  gt  jstack txt   So when you run jstack with no variable it outputs the following    Terminate batch file Y N     Your second mistake is that you pressed Enter instead of giving a value when the program asked you   Enter ID    If you would have put in an ID at this point  say 1234  the  id  variable would become that value  in our case 1234  But  you did NOT supply a value and instead pressed Enter  When you don t give the variable any value  and if that variable was not set to anything else before  then the variable  id  is set to the prompt of the set command    So now  id  is set to Enter ID  which was echoed on your screen as requested in the batch file BEFORE you called the jstack    But I suspect you DID have the jstack  id   gt  jstack txt in your batch file code with the  id  and omitted it by mistake from the question   and that you hit enter without typing in an id  The batch program then echoed the id  which is now  Enter ID    and then ran jstack Enter ID   gt  jstack txt   Jstack itself echoed the input  encountered a mistake and asked to terminate  And all this was written into the jstack txt file

User · Answer

You can try also with userInput bat which uses the html input element   This will assign the input to the value jstackId  call userInput bat jstackId echo  jstackId   This will just print the input value which eventually you can capture with FOR  F   call userInput bat

User · Answer

The syntax is as such  set  p variable  string   Check out http   commandwindows com batch htm or http   www robvanderwoude com userinput php for a more deep dive into user input with the different versions of Windows OS batch files   Once you have set your variable  you can then go about using it in the following fashion    echo off set  p UserInputPath What Directory would you like  cd C   UserInputPath    note the  VariableName  syntax

[windows] In Windows cmd, how do I prompt for user input and use the result in another command?

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