How do I get the application exit code from a Windows command line

Question

I am running a program and want to see what its return code is  since it returns different codes based on different errors    I know in Bash I can do this by running     echo      What do I do when using cmd exe on Windows

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Use the built-in ERRORLEVEL Variable   echo  ERRORLEVEL    But beware if an application has defined an environment variable named ERRORLEVEL

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At one point I needed to accurately push log events from Cygwin to the Windows Event log  I wanted the messages in WEVL to be custom  have the correct exit code  details  priorities  message  etc  So I created a little Bash script to take care of this  Here it is on GitHub  logit sh   Some excerpts   usage  logit sh  -h   -p   -i n   -s   lt description gt  example  logit sh -p error -i 501 -s myscript sh  failed to run the mount command    Here is the temporary file contents part   LGT TEMP FILE    mktemp --suffix  cmd   cat lt  lt EOF gt  LGT TEMP FILE      echo off     set LGT EXITCODE   LGT ID      exit  b  LGT ID  EOF unix2dos   LGT TEMP FILE    Here is a function to to create events in WEVL     create event          local cmd  eventcreate  ID  LGT ID  L Application  SO  LGT SOURCE  T  LGT PRIORITY  D       if      1               then         local IFS             for i in   1   do              cmd   i   amp  gt  dev null         done     else          cmd   LGT DESC   amp  gt  dev null     fi     Executing the batch script and calling on   create event   cmd  c    cygpath -wa   LGT TEMP FILE      create event

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Use the built-in ERRORLEVEL Variable   echo  ERRORLEVEL    But beware if an application has defined an environment variable named ERRORLEVEL

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A pseudo environment variable named errorlevel stores the exit code   echo Exit Code is  errorlevel    Also  the if command has a special syntax   if errorlevel   See if    for details   Example   echo off my nify exe exe if errorlevel 1      echo Failure Reason Given is  errorlevel     exit  b  errorlevel      Warning  If you set an environment variable name errorlevel   errorlevel  will return that value and not the exit code  Use  set errorlevel   to clear the environment variable  allowing access to the true value of errorlevel via the  errorlevel  environment variable

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It might not work correctly when using a program that is not attached to the console  because that app might still be running while you think you have the exit code  A solution to do it in C   looks like below    include  stdafx h   include  windows h   include  stdio h   include  tchar h   include  stdio h   include  shellapi h   int  tmain  int argc  TCHAR  argv            CString cmdline GetCommandLineW         cmdline TrimLeft            CString self argv 0        self Trim            CString args   cmdline Mid self GetLength   1       args TrimLeft  T              printf  Arguments passed    ws  n  args       STARTUPINFO si      PROCESS INFORMATION pi       ZeroMemory   amp si  sizeof si         si cb   sizeof si       ZeroMemory   amp pi  sizeof pi          if  argc  lt  2                 printf  Usage   s arg1 arg2     n   argv 0            return -1             CString strCmd args          Start the child process       if   CreateProcess  NULL       No module name  use command line           LPTSTR  strCmd GetString               Command line         NULL               Process handle not inheritable         NULL               Thread handle not inheritable         FALSE              Set handle inheritance to FALSE         0                  No creation flags         NULL               Use parent s environment block         NULL               Use parent s starting directory           amp si                Pointer to STARTUPINFO structure          amp pi                Pointer to PROCESS INFORMATION structure                      printf   CreateProcess failed   d  n   GetLastError              return GetLastError              else         printf   Waiting for    ws   to exit      n   strCmd            Wait until child process exits      WaitForSingleObject  pi hProcess  INFINITE        int result   -1      if  GetExitCodeProcess pi hProcess  LPDWORD  amp result                  printf  GetExitCodeProcess   failed   d  n   GetLastError                else         printf  The exit code for   ws  is  d n   LPTSTR  strCmd GetString     result           Close process and thread handles       CloseHandle  pi hProcess        CloseHandle  pi hThread        return result

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A pseudo environment variable named errorlevel stores the exit code   echo Exit Code is  errorlevel    Also  the if command has a special syntax   if errorlevel   See if    for details   Example   echo off my nify exe exe if errorlevel 1      echo Failure Reason Given is  errorlevel     exit  b  errorlevel      Warning  If you set an environment variable name errorlevel   errorlevel  will return that value and not the exit code  Use  set errorlevel   to clear the environment variable  allowing access to the true value of errorlevel via the  errorlevel  environment variable

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It s worth noting that  BAT and  CMD files operate differently   Reading https   ss64 com nt errorlevel html it notes the following      There is a key difference between the way  CMD and  BAT batch files set errorlevels       An old  BAT batch script running the  new  internal commands  APPEND  ASSOC  PATH  PROMPT  FTYPE and SET will only set ERRORLEVEL if an error occurs  So if you have two commands in the batch script and the first fails  the ERRORLEVEL will remain set even after the second command succeeds       This can make debugging a problem BAT script more difficult  a CMD batch script is more consistent and will set ERRORLEVEL after every command that you run  source     This was causing me no end of grief as I was executing successive commands  but the ERRORLEVEL would remain unchanged even in the event of a failure

User · Answer

Use the built-in ERRORLEVEL Variable   echo  ERRORLEVEL    But beware if an application has defined an environment variable named ERRORLEVEL

User · Answer

At one point I needed to accurately push log events from Cygwin to the Windows Event log  I wanted the messages in WEVL to be custom  have the correct exit code  details  priorities  message  etc  So I created a little Bash script to take care of this  Here it is on GitHub  logit sh   Some excerpts   usage  logit sh  -h   -p   -i n   -s   lt description gt  example  logit sh -p error -i 501 -s myscript sh  failed to run the mount command    Here is the temporary file contents part   LGT TEMP FILE    mktemp --suffix  cmd   cat lt  lt EOF gt  LGT TEMP FILE      echo off     set LGT EXITCODE   LGT ID      exit  b  LGT ID  EOF unix2dos   LGT TEMP FILE    Here is a function to to create events in WEVL     create event          local cmd  eventcreate  ID  LGT ID  L Application  SO  LGT SOURCE  T  LGT PRIORITY  D       if      1               then         local IFS             for i in   1   do              cmd   i   amp  gt  dev null         done     else          cmd   LGT DESC   amp  gt  dev null     fi     Executing the batch script and calling on   create event   cmd  c    cygpath -wa   LGT TEMP FILE      create event

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Testing ErrorLevel works for console applications  but as hinted at by dmihailescu  this won t work if you re trying to run a windowed application  e g  Win32-based  from a command prompt   A windowed application will run in the background  and control will return immediately to the command prompt  most likely with an ErrorLevel of zero to indicate that the process was created successfully    When a windowed application eventually exits  its exit status is lost   Instead of using the console-based C   launcher mentioned elsewhere  though  a simpler alternative is to start a windowed application using the command prompt s START  WAIT command   This will start the windowed application  wait for it to exit  and then return control to the command prompt with the exit status of the process set in ErrorLevel   start  wait something exe echo  errorlevel

User · Answer

Use the built-in ERRORLEVEL Variable   echo  ERRORLEVEL    But beware if an application has defined an environment variable named ERRORLEVEL

User · Answer

If you want to match the error code exactly  eg equals 0   use this    echo off my nify exe exe if  ERRORLEVEL  EQU 0      echo Success   else      echo Failure Reason Given is  errorlevel     exit  b  errorlevel      if errorlevel 0 matches errorlevel    0  See if

User · Answer

It might not work correctly when using a program that is not attached to the console  because that app might still be running while you think you have the exit code  A solution to do it in C   looks like below    include  stdafx h   include  windows h   include  stdio h   include  tchar h   include  stdio h   include  shellapi h   int  tmain  int argc  TCHAR  argv            CString cmdline GetCommandLineW         cmdline TrimLeft            CString self argv 0        self Trim            CString args   cmdline Mid self GetLength   1       args TrimLeft  T              printf  Arguments passed    ws  n  args       STARTUPINFO si      PROCESS INFORMATION pi       ZeroMemory   amp si  sizeof si         si cb   sizeof si       ZeroMemory   amp pi  sizeof pi          if  argc  lt  2                 printf  Usage   s arg1 arg2     n   argv 0            return -1             CString strCmd args          Start the child process       if   CreateProcess  NULL       No module name  use command line           LPTSTR  strCmd GetString               Command line         NULL               Process handle not inheritable         NULL               Thread handle not inheritable         FALSE              Set handle inheritance to FALSE         0                  No creation flags         NULL               Use parent s environment block         NULL               Use parent s starting directory           amp si                Pointer to STARTUPINFO structure          amp pi                Pointer to PROCESS INFORMATION structure                      printf   CreateProcess failed   d  n   GetLastError              return GetLastError              else         printf   Waiting for    ws   to exit      n   strCmd            Wait until child process exits      WaitForSingleObject  pi hProcess  INFINITE        int result   -1      if  GetExitCodeProcess pi hProcess  LPDWORD  amp result                  printf  GetExitCodeProcess   failed   d  n   GetLastError                else         printf  The exit code for   ws  is  d n   LPTSTR  strCmd GetString     result           Close process and thread handles       CloseHandle  pi hProcess        CloseHandle  pi hThread        return result

User · Answer

Testing ErrorLevel works for console applications  but as hinted at by dmihailescu  this won t work if you re trying to run a windowed application  e g  Win32-based  from a command prompt   A windowed application will run in the background  and control will return immediately to the command prompt  most likely with an ErrorLevel of zero to indicate that the process was created successfully    When a windowed application eventually exits  its exit status is lost   Instead of using the console-based C   launcher mentioned elsewhere  though  a simpler alternative is to start a windowed application using the command prompt s START  WAIT command   This will start the windowed application  wait for it to exit  and then return control to the command prompt with the exit status of the process set in ErrorLevel   start  wait something exe echo  errorlevel

User · Answer

A pseudo environment variable named errorlevel stores the exit code   echo Exit Code is  errorlevel    Also  the if command has a special syntax   if errorlevel   See if    for details   Example   echo off my nify exe exe if errorlevel 1      echo Failure Reason Given is  errorlevel     exit  b  errorlevel      Warning  If you set an environment variable name errorlevel   errorlevel  will return that value and not the exit code  Use  set errorlevel   to clear the environment variable  allowing access to the true value of errorlevel via the  errorlevel  environment variable

User · Answer

If you want to match the error code exactly  eg equals 0   use this    echo off my nify exe exe if  ERRORLEVEL  EQU 0      echo Success   else      echo Failure Reason Given is  errorlevel     exit  b  errorlevel      if errorlevel 0 matches errorlevel    0  See if

User · Answer

A pseudo environment variable named errorlevel stores the exit code   echo Exit Code is  errorlevel    Also  the if command has a special syntax   if errorlevel   See if    for details   Example   echo off my nify exe exe if errorlevel 1      echo Failure Reason Given is  errorlevel     exit  b  errorlevel      Warning  If you set an environment variable name errorlevel   errorlevel  will return that value and not the exit code  Use  set errorlevel   to clear the environment variable  allowing access to the true value of errorlevel via the  errorlevel  environment variable

User · Answer

It s worth noting that  BAT and  CMD files operate differently   Reading https   ss64 com nt errorlevel html it notes the following      There is a key difference between the way  CMD and  BAT batch files set errorlevels       An old  BAT batch script running the  new  internal commands  APPEND  ASSOC  PATH  PROMPT  FTYPE and SET will only set ERRORLEVEL if an error occurs  So if you have two commands in the batch script and the first fails  the ERRORLEVEL will remain set even after the second command succeeds       This can make debugging a problem BAT script more difficult  a CMD batch script is more consistent and will set ERRORLEVEL after every command that you run  source     This was causing me no end of grief as I was executing successive commands  but the ERRORLEVEL would remain unchanged even in the event of a failure

[windows] How do I get the application exit code from a Windows command line?

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