How can I pass arguments to a batch file

Question

I need to pass an ID and a password to a batch file at the time of running rather than hardcoding them into the file   Here s what the command line looks like   test cmd admin P 55w0rd  gt  test-log txt

User · Accepted Answer

Here s how I did it    fake-command  u  1  p  2   Here s what the command looks like   test cmd admin P 55w0rd  gt  test-log txt   The  1 applies to the first parameter the  2  and here s the tricky part  applies to the second  You can have up to 9 parameters passed in this way

User · Answer

Another useful tip is to use    to mean  all   For example   echo off set arg1  1 set arg2  2 shift shift fake-command  u  arg1   p  arg2       When you run   test-command admin password foo bar   the above batch file will run   fake-command  u admin  p password admin password foo bar   I may have the syntax slightly wrong  but this is the general idea

User · Answer

FOR   A IN      DO       REM Now your batch file handles   A instead of  1     REM No need to use SHIFT anymore      ECHO   A     This loops over the batch parameters      either they are quoted or not  then echos each parameter

User · Answer

If you want to intelligently handle missing parameters you can do something like   IF  1     GOTO No1 IF  2     GOTO No2     do stuff    GOTO End1   No1   ECHO No param 1 GOTO End1  No2   ECHO No param 2 GOTO End1   End1

User · Answer

ECHO OFF  Loop IF   1      GOTO Continue SHIFT GOTO Loop  Continue   Note    IF   1      will cause problems if  1 is enclosed in quotes itself   In that case  use IF   1      or  in NT 4  SP6  and later only  IF    1      instead

User · Answer

Let s keep this simple   Here is the  cmd file    echo off rem this file is named echo 3params cmd echo  1 echo  2 echo  3 set v1  1 set v2  2 set v3  3 echo v1 equals  v1  echo v2 equals  v2  echo v3 equals  v3    Here are 3 calls from the command line   C  Users joeco gt echo 3params 1abc 2 def  3 ghi 1abc 2 def v1 equals 1abc v2 equals 2 v3 equals def  C  Users joeco gt echo 3params 1abc  2 def    3 ghi  1abc  2 def   3 ghi  v1 equals 1abc v2 equals  2 def  v3 equals  3 ghi   C  Users joeco gt echo 3params 1abc  2 def    3 ghi  1abc  2 def  v1 equals 1abc v2 equals  2 v3 equals def   C  Users joeco gt

User · Answer

Inspired by an answer elsewhere by  Jon  I have crafted a more general algorithm for extracting named parameters  optional values  and switches   Let us say that we want to implement a utility foobar  It requires an initial command  It has an optional parameter --foo which takes an optional value  which cannot be another parameter  of course   if the value is missing it defaults to default  It also has an optional parameter --bar which takes a required value  Lastly it can take a flag --baz with no value allowed  Oh  and these parameters can come in any order   In other words  it looks like this   foobar  lt command gt   --foo   lt fooval gt     --bar  lt barval gt    --baz    Here is a solution    ECHO OFF SETLOCAL REM FooBar parameter demo REM By Garret Wilson  SET CMD   1  IF   CMD             GOTO usage   SET FOO  SET DEFAULT FOO default SET BAR  SET BAZ   SHIFT  args SET PARAM   1 SET ARG   2 IF   PARAM       --foo      SHIFT   IF NOT   ARG               IF NOT   ARG  0 2       --          SET FOO  ARG        SHIFT       ELSE         SET FOO  DEFAULT FOO            ELSE       SET FOO  DEFAULT FOO        ELSE IF   PARAM       --bar      SHIFT   IF NOT   ARG               SET BAR  ARG      SHIFT     ELSE       ECHO Missing bar value  1 gt  amp 2     ECHO      GOTO usage       ELSE IF   PARAM       --baz      SHIFT   SET BAZ true   ELSE IF   PARAM             GOTO endargs   ELSE     ECHO Unrecognized option  1  1 gt  amp 2   ECHO    GOTO usage   GOTO args  endargs  ECHO Command   CMD  IF NOT   FOO             ECHO Foo   FOO    IF NOT   BAR             ECHO Bar   BAR    IF   BAZ       true      ECHO Baz    REM TODO do something with FOO  BAR  and or BAZ GOTO  eof   usage ECHO FooBar ECHO Usage  foobar   lt command  gt   --foo    lt fooval  gt     --bar   lt barval  gt    --baz  EXIT  B 1    Use SETLOCAL so that the variables don t escape into the calling environment  Don t forget to initialize the variables SET FOO   etc  in case someone defined them in the calling environment  Use   1 to remove quotes  Use IF   ARG         and not IF   ARG         because   and   don t play will at all with values ending in a space  Even if you SHIFT inside an IF block  the current args such as   1 don t get updated because they are determined when the IF is parsed  You could use   1 and   2 inside the IF block  but it would be confusing because you had a SHIFT  You could put the SHIFT at the end of the block for clarity  but that might get lost and or confuse people as well  So  capturing    1 and   1 outside the block seems best  You don t want to use a parameter in place of another parameter s optional value  so you have to check IF NOT   ARG  0 2       --   Be careful only to SHIFT when you use one of the parameters  The duplicate code SET FOO  DEFAULT FOO  is regrettable  but the alternative would be to add an IF   FOO         SET FOO  DEFAULT FOO  outside the IF NOT   ARG         block  However because this is still inside the IF   PARAM       --foo  block  the  FOO  value would have been evaluated and set before you ever entered the block  so you would never detect that both the --foo parameter was present and also that the  FOO  value was missing  Note that ECHO Missing bar value  1 gt  amp 2 sends the error message to stderr  Want a blank line in a Windows batch file  You gotta use ECHO  or one of the variations

User · Answer

Accessing batch parameters can be simple with  1   2       9 or also     but only if the content is simple     There is no simple way for complex contents like   amp    amp   as it s not possible to access  1 without producing an error     set  var  1 set  var  1  set  var   1 set  var   1    The lines expand to    set  var   amp   amp  set  var   amp   amp   set  var   amp   amp  set  var   amp   amp     And each line fails  as one of the  amp  is outside of the quotes   It can be solved with reading from a temporary file a remarked version of the parameter    echo off SETLOCAL DisableDelayedExpansion  SETLOCAL for   a in  1  do       set  prompt       echo on     for   b in  1  do rem     1       echo off    gt  param txt ENDLOCAL  for  F  delims     L in  param txt  do     set  param1   L    SETLOCAL EnableDelayedExpansion set  param1  param1       set  param1  param1  0 -2   echo   1 is   param1     The trick is to enable echo on and expand the  1 after a rem statement  works also with  2         So even   amp   amp  could be echoed without producing an error  as it is remarked     But to be able to redirect the output of the echo on  you need the two for-loops   The extra characters     are used to be safe against contents like     would show the help for REM   Or a caret   at the line end could work as a multiline character  even in after a rem     Then reading the rem parameter output from the file  but carefully  The FOR  F should work with delayed expansion off  else contents with     would be destroyed  After removing the extra characters in param1  you got it   And to use param1 in a safe way  enable the delayed expansion

User · Answer

In batch file set argument1  1 set argument2  2 echo  argument1  echo  argument2    1 and  2 return the first and second argument values respectively  And in command line  pass the argument Directory gt  batchFileName admin P 55w0rd   Output will be admin P 55w0rd

User · Answer

Paired arguments If you prefer passing the arguments in a key-value pair you can use something like this   echo off  setlocal enableDelayedExpansion         asigning arguments as a key-value pairs              set counter 0 for     in      do           set  a counter counter 1     set  a even counter  2          if  even     0           echo setting  prev  to             set  quot  prev       quot            set  quot prev      quot                                                                   showing the assignments echo  one   two   three   four   five   endlocal  And an example   c  gt argumentsDemo bat one 1  quot two quot  2 three 3 four 4  quot five quot  5 1 2 3 4 5  Predefined variables You can also set some environment variables in advance  It can be done by setting them in the console or setting them from my computer   echo off  if defined variable1       echo  variable1     if defined variable2       echo  variable2     and calling it like  c   gt set variable1 1  c   gt set variable2 2  c   gt argumentsTest bat 1 2  File with listed values You can also point to a file where the needed values are preset  If this is the script   echo off  setlocal            set  quot VALUES FILE E  scripts values txt quot                for  f  quot usebackq eol   tokens   delims  quot      in   quot  VALUES FILE  quot   do set  quot     quot   echo  key1   key2   some other key   endlocal  and values file is this       use EOL   in the FOR loop to use it as a comment  key1 value1  key2 value2       do not left spaces arround the        or at the begining of the line  some other key something else  and one more more  the output of calling it will be   value1 value2 something else  Of course you can combine all approaches  Check also arguments syntax   shift

User · Answer

I wrote a simple read params script that can be called as a function  or external  bat  and will put all variables into the current environment  It won t modify the original parameters because the function is being called with a copy of the original parameters   For example  given the following command   myscript bat some -random 43 extra -greeting  hello world  fluff   myscript bat would be able to use the variables after calling the function   call  read params     echo  random  echo  greeting    Here s the function    read params if not  1           if not     var                 if not     var  0 1     -                endlocal             goto read params                   endlocal  amp  set    var  1    1       else           setlocal  amp  set   var   1           shift     goto read params   exit  B     Limitations   Cannot load arguments with no value such as -force  You could use -force true but I can t think of a way to allow blank values without knowing a list of parameters ahead of time that won t have a value      Changelog   2 18 2016   No longer requires delayed expansion Now works with other command line arguments by looking for - before parameters

User · Answer

A friend was asking me about this subject recently  so I thought I d post how I handle command-line arguments in batch files   This technique has a bit of overhead as you ll see  but it makes my batch files very easy to understand and quick to implement  As well as supporting the following structures    gt template bat  -f   --flag    f   --namedvalue value  arg1  arg2  arg3         The jist of it is having the  init   parse  and  main functions      Example usage    gt template bat    test v1 23 This is a sample batch file template  providing command-line arguments and flags   USAGE  test bat  flags   required argument   optional argument       --help           shows this help  v  --version        shows the version  e  --verbose        shows detailed output -f  --flag value     specifies a named parameter value   gt template bat           lt - throws missing argument error  same as     plus                                                        MISSING  REQUIRED ARGUMENT                                                        gt template bat -v 1 23   gt template bat --version test v1 23 This is a sample batch file template  providing command-line arguments and flags    gt template bat -e arg1      DEBUG IS ON UnNamedArgument      arg1  UnNamedOptionalArg  not provided NamedFlag           not provided   gt template bat --flag  my flag  arg1 arg2 UnNamedArgument      arg1  UnNamedOptionalArg   arg2  NamedFlag            my flag    gt template bat --verbose  argument  1  --flag  my flag  second      DEBUG IS ON UnNamedArgument      argument  1  UnNamedOptionalArg   second  NamedFlag            my flag       template bat        dos rocks  echo off goto  init   header     echo    NAME  v   VERSION      echo This is a sample batch file template      echo providing command-line arguments and flags      echo      goto  eof   usage     echo USAGE      echo      BAT NAME   flags   required argument   optional argument       echo      echo       --help           shows this help     echo    v  --version        shows the version     echo    e  --verbose        shows detailed output     echo   -f  --flag value     specifies a named parameter value     goto  eof   version     if    1    full  call  header  amp  goto  eof     echo    VERSION      goto  eof   missing argument     call  header     call  usage     echo      echo                                                 echo         MISSING  REQUIRED ARGUMENT              echo                                                 echo      goto  eof   init     set    NAME   n0      set    VERSION 1 23      set    YEAR 2017       set    BAT FILE   0      set    BAT PATH   dp0      set    BAT NAME   nx0       set  OptHelp       set  OptVersion       set  OptVerbose        set  UnNamedArgument       set  UnNamedOptionalArg       set  NamedFlag     parse     if    1      goto  validate      if  i    1                call  header  amp  call  usage    2   amp  goto  end     if  i    1    -           call  header  amp  call  usage    2   amp  goto  end     if  i    1    --help      call  header  amp  call  usage    2   amp  goto  end      if  i    1     v          call  version       amp  goto  end     if  i    1    -v          call  version       amp  goto  end     if  i    1    --version   call  version full  amp  goto  end      if  i    1     e          set  OptVerbose yes    amp  shift  amp  goto  parse     if  i    1    -e          set  OptVerbose yes    amp  shift  amp  goto  parse     if  i    1    --verbose   set  OptVerbose yes    amp  shift  amp  goto  parse      if  i    1    --flag      set  NamedFlag   2     amp  shift  amp  shift  amp  goto  parse      if not defined UnNamedArgument     set  UnNamedArgument   1       amp  shift  amp  goto  parse     if not defined UnNamedOptionalArg  set  UnNamedOptionalArg   1    amp  shift  amp  goto  parse      shift     goto  parse   validate     if not defined UnNamedArgument call  missing argument  amp  goto  end   main     if defined OptVerbose           echo      DEBUG IS ON            echo UnNamedArgument       UnNamedArgument        if defined UnNamedOptionalArg      echo UnNamedOptionalArg    UnNamedOptionalArg       if not defined UnNamedOptionalArg  echo UnNamedOptionalArg  not provided      if defined NamedFlag               echo NamedFlag             NamedFlag       if not defined NamedFlag           echo NamedFlag           not provided   end     call  cleanup     exit  B   cleanup     REM The cleanup function is only really necessary if you     REM are  not  using SETLOCAL      set    NAME       set    VERSION       set    YEAR        set    BAT FILE       set    BAT PATH       set    BAT NAME        set  OptHelp       set  OptVersion       set  OptVerbose        set  UnNamedArgument       set  UnNamedArgument2       set  NamedFlag        goto  eof

User · Answer

For to use looping get all arguments and in pure batch   Obs  For using without     amp  lt  gt    echo off  amp  amp  setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion   for   Z in     do set  quot  arg    Z quot   amp  amp  set a  quot  cnt  1 0 quot   amp  amp         call set  quot  arg    cnt     arg   quot   amp  amp  for  l   l in    cnt  1   cnt        do echo  The argument n   l is    arg    l       goto  eof    Your code is ready to do something with the argument number where it needs  like        echo off  amp  amp  setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion   for   Z in     do set  quot  arg    Z quot   amp  amp  set a  quot  cnt  1 0 quot   amp  amp  call set  quot  arg    cnt     arg   quot     fake-command  u   arg  1    p   arg  2    gt  test-log txt

User · Answer

To refer to a set variable in command line you would need to use  a  so for example   set a 100  echo  a    rem output   100    Note  This works for Windows 7 pro

User · Answer

There is no need to complicate it  It is simply command  1  2 parameters  for example    echo off  xcopy  1  2  D  E  C  Q  H  R  K  Y  Z  echo copied  1 to  2  pause   The  pause  displays what the batch file has done and waits for you to hit the ANY key  Save that as xx bat in the Windows folder   To use it  type  for example   xx c  f 30     f  sites 30   This batch file takes care of all the necessary parameters  like copying only files  that are newer  etc  I have used it since before Windows  If you like seeing the names of the files  as they are being copied  leave out the Q parameter

User · Answer

Simple solution even though question is old   Test1 bat  echo off echo  Batch started  set arg1  1 echo  arg1 is  arg1   echo on pause   CallTest1 bat  call  C  Temp Test1 bat  pass123   output  YourLocalPath gt call  C  Temp test bat  pass123  YourLocalPath gt echo off  Batch started   arg1 is pass123   YourLocalPath gt pause Press any key to continue         Where YourLocalPath is current directory path    To keep things simple store the command param in variable and use variable for comparison    Its not just simple to write but its simple to maintain as well so if later some other person or you read your script after long period of time  it will be easy to understand and maintain   To write code inline   see other answers

User · Answer

Yep  and just don t forget to use variables like   1 when using if and for and the gang   If you forget the double    then you will be substituting in  possibly null  command line arguments and you will receive some pretty confusing error messages

User · Answer

Make a new batch file  example  openclass bat  and write this line in the file   java   n1   Then place the batch file in  let s say  the system32 folder  go to your Java class file  right click  Properties  Open with     then find your batch file  select it and that s that     It works for me   PS  I can t find a way to close the cmd window when I close the Java class  For now

[batch-file] How can I pass arguments to a batch file?

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