How to write a multiline command

Question

How do we extend a command to the next line  Basically whats the windows alternative for Linux s ls -l    usr   Here we use backslashes to extend the command onto the next lines  What s the equivalent for Windows

User · Answer

In the Windows Command Prompt the   is used to escape the next character on the command line   Like   is used in strings   Characters that need to be used in the command line as they are should have a   prefixed to them  hence that s why it works for the newline   For reference the characters that need escaping  if specified as command arguments and not within quotes  are   amp       So the equivalent of your linux example would be  the More  being a prompt    C   gt  dir   More  C  Windows

User · Answer

The caret character works  however the next line should not start with double quotes  e g  this will not work   C      SampleText       Start next line without double quotes  not a valid example  just to illustrate

User · Answer

After trying almost every key on my keyboard   C  Users Tim gt cd   Mehr  Desktop  C  Users Tim Desktop gt    So it seems to be the   key

User · Answer

If you came here looking for an answer to this question but not exactly the way the OP meant  ie how do you get multi-line CMD to work in a single line  I have a sort of dangerous answer for you   Trying to use this with things that actually use piping  like say findstr is quite problematic  The same goes for dealing with elses  But if you just want a multi-line conditional command to execute directly from CMD and not via a batch file  this should do work well   Let s say you have something like this in a batch that you want to run directly in command prompt     echo off for  r   T IN       DO       if  i     xT     sln            echo     T  is a normal SLN file  and not a  SLN METAPROJ or  SLN PROJ file         echo Dumping SLN file contents         type     T            Now  you could use the line-continuation carat     and manually type it out like this  but warning  it s tedious and if you mess up you can learn the joy of typing it all out again   Well  it won t work with just   thanks to escaping mechanisms inside of parentheses shrug At least not as-written  You actually would need to double up the carats like so    echo off   More  for  r  T IN    sln  DO     More  if  i    xT     sln      More  echo    T  is a normal SLN file  and not a  SLN METAPROJ or  SLN PROJ file   More  echo Dumping SLN file contents   More  type    T      Instead  you can be a dirty sneaky scripter from the wrong side of the tracks that don t need no carats by swapping them out for a single pipe     per continuation of a loop expression      echo off for  r  T IN    sln  DO if  i    xT     sln  echo    T  is a normal SLN file  and not a  SLN METAPROJ or  SLN PROJ file   echo Dumping SLN file contents   type    T

[windows] How to write a multiline command?

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