This page contains a collection of some really short samples of frequently asked functions in batch files.
| Function | Batch Code | Remarks |
|---|---|---|
| Batch file's directory | ECHO "%~dp0" | Shows the batch file's directory with trailing backslash (credits: Sean Brannery) |
| Batch file's directory (SFN) | ECHO "%~dps0" | Shows the batch file's directory as Short File Name (8.3 notation) |
| Battery icon in notification area | POWERCFG /GlobalPowerFlag ON /Option:BatteryIcon | Will even work on desktops and servers |
| Beep | ECHO ˆG | ˆG is Ctrl+G (ASCII character 7) |
| CD Writer or Not? | WMIC CDROM Where "Drive='d:'" Get Capabilities | FINDSTR /R /C:"[^0-9]4[^0-9]" | Displays a string like {3, 4, 7} and returns errorlevel 0 if drive d: is a CD/DVD writer, or doesn't display anything and returns errorlevel 1 if not (capability value 4 means the drive "Supports writing") |
| Count files | DIR /A | FIND "File(s)" | Counts the number of files in the current directory. Will show its result like this: 47 File(s).Language dependent, FIND filter shown is for English Windows versions only. |
| Count files | DIR /A-D /B | FIND /C /V "" | Counts the number of files in the current directory. Will show its result like this: 47.Language independent. |
| Count files | SET Count=0 FOR %%A IN (*.*) DO SET /A Count += 1 ECHO.%Count% |
Counts the number of files in the current directory. Will show its result like this: 47.Language independent. "Limited" to 32767 (7FFF) files maximum. |
| Count files (1) | XCOPY * "%TEMP%" /H /L /Q /S /Y | Counts the number of files in the current directory. Will show its result like this: 47 File(s).Language independent. Credits: Andrew J. Macbeth |
| Count files in subfolders | FOR /D %%A IN (*) DO ( ECHO.%%A DIR "%%~A" /A-D /B /S | FIND /C /V "" ) |
Counts the number of files in each subdirectory. Will show its result like this: My PicturesLanguage independent. |
| Count files in subfolders (1) | FOR /D %%F IN (*) DO ( ECHO "%%F" XCOPY "%%F\*" "%TEMP%" /H /L /Q /S /Y ) |
Counts the number of files in each subdirectory. Will show its result like this: "My Pictures"Language independent. Credits: Andrew J. Macbeth |
| Count files in subfolders (1) | FOR /D %%F IN (*) DO ( FOR /F %%C IN ('XCOPY "%%F\*" "%TEMP%" /H /L /Q /S /Y') DO ( ECHO.%%C File(s) %%F ) ) |
Counts the number of files in each subdirectory. Will show its result like this: 47 File(s) My Pictures.Language independent. Credits: Andrew J. Macbeth |
| Count files in subfolders | FOR /D %%A IN (*) DO ( FOR /F %%B IN ('DIR "%%~A" /A-D /B /S ˆ| FIND /C /V ""') DO ( ECHO.%%B File(s) %%A ) |
Counts the number of files in each subdirectory. Will show its result like this: 47 File(s) My PicturesLanguage independent. |
| Count total files in subfolders | DIR /A-D /B /S | FIND /C /V "" | Counts the total number of files in the current directory plus subdirectories. Will show its result like this: 47Language independent. |
| Count files modified since ... (1) | XCOPY * "%TEMP%" /H /L /S /Q /Y /D:12-29-2005 | Counts all files modified since December 29, 2005, in the current directory and subdirectories. Will show its result like this: 13 File(s)Regardless of language or international settings, the date format for XCOPY's /D switch is always M-D-Y. |
| Count files modified before ... (1) | FOR /F %%A IN ('XCOPY * "%TEMP%" /H /L /S /Q /Y /D:12-29-2005') DO ( FOR /F %%B IN ('XCOPY * "%TEMP%" /H /L /S /Q /Y') DO ( SET /A OldFiles = %%B - %%A ) ) ECHO.%OldFiles% File(s) |
Counts all files modified before December 29, 2005, in the current directory and subdirectories. Will show its result like this: 34 File(s)Regardless of language or international settings, the date format for XCOPY's /D switch is always M-D-Y. |
| Counter | SET /A Counter += 1 | Increments the variable %Counter% by 1; if %Counter% is not defined, its starting value is 0 |
| Current Directory | CD | Displays the current directory (without trailing backslash, unless it is the root directory) |
| Current Directory | ECHO.%CD% | Displays the current directory (without trailing backslash, unless it is the root directory) |
| Current Directory | ECHO.%__CD__% | Displays the current directory with trailing backslash (note the double underscores before and after CD) |
| Current Directory | ECHO.%__CD__:~0,-1% | Displays the current directory without trailing backslash (note the double underscores before and after CD) |
| Current Directory (SFN) | FOR %%A IN ("%CD%") DO ECHO.%%~sfA | Displays the current directory as Short File Name (8.3 notation, without trailing backslash, unless it is the root directory) |
| Current Drive | FOR %%A IN ("%CD%") DO ECHO.%%~dA | Displays the current drive letter (or \\ for UNC paths)(Thanks Rob Huston for pointing out the required doublequotes) |
| Date | DATE /T | |
| Date | ECHO.%Date% | |
| Date | FOR %%A IN (%Date:/=%) DO SET Today=%%A | Removes forward slashes and day of week, so the result can be used in a file name |
| Date (YYYYMMDD format) | FOR %%A IN (%Date%) DO ( FOR /F "tokens=1-3 delims=/-" %%B in ("%%~A") DO ( SET Today=%%D%%B%%C ) ) |
Stores current date in YYYYMMDD format variable %Today%.
Code shown is for (US) systems with date in MM/DD/YYYY format.
Use %%D%%C%%B for systems with date in DD-MM-YYYY format.(Credits: Matthew C. Miller) |
| Date | VER | DATE | FIND /V "(" | Will also show the text "The current date is" and, depending on OS version and regional settings, the day of the week |
| Date and Time in file name | REN *.LOG "* %Date:/= % %Time::=.%.*" | Will append the current date and time to all log file names, replacing forward slashes by spaces and colons by dots |
| Date and Time in file name | SET Today=%Date: =0% SET Today=%Today:~-4%%Date:~-7,2%%Date:~-10,2% SET Now=%Time: =0% FOR /F "tokens=1,2 delims=:.," %%A IN ("%Now%") DO SET Now=%%A%%B REN *.LOG "*_%Today%_%Now%.*" |
Will append the current date and time to all log file names, with the date in YYYYMMDD format and the time in HHmm format.
The code shown is for systems with the date in DD*MM*YYYY format, change the order of the Date substrings for other date settings.(Credits: Ildar Shaimordanov) |
| Drive letters in use | FSUTIL FSINFO DRIVES | Lists all drive letters in a single line on screen; however, to parse that line with FOR /F you'll need MORE /E /T0 to remove vertical tabs or orphaned line feeds, as demonstrated in my own DrivUsed.bat |
| File size | FOR %%A IN (filename.ext) DO SET FileSize=%%~zA | Will store the size of filename.ext into variable %FileSize% |
| Hexadecimal to Decimal | SET /A DecValue = 0x%HexString% | Maximum value 65536 (216) |
| IP Address | PING %ComputerName% | Substitute %ComputerName% with a remote computer name to get that computer's IP address. |
| IP Address | NSLOOKUP %ComputerName% | DNS only. Substitute %ComputerName% with a remote computer name to get that computer's IP address.Instead of a computer name, you can also specify an IP address to get the computer name. |
| IP Address | FOR /F "tokens=2 delims=[]" %%A IN ('PING %ComputerName% -n 1') DO ( SET IP=%%A ) |
Substitute %ComputerName% with a remote computer name to get that computer's IP address. |
| IP Address | FOR /F "tokens=1,2" %%A IN ('NSLOOKUP %ComputerName%') DO ( IF "%%~B"=="" (SET IP=%%A) ELSE (SET IP=%%B) ) |
DNS only. Substitute %ComputerName% with a remote computer name to get that computer's IP address.Instead of a computer name, you can also specify an IP address to get the computer name. |
| Jump to batch file's directory | PUSHD "%~dp0" | Will map a network drive if the batch file was started from a UNC path, and then make the batch file's location the current (or working) directory. Use POPD before closing the batch file, otherwise the mapping will persist. (Credits: Reinhard Irnberger) |
| Linefeed | ECHO. | Actually a carriage return/linefeed combination; displays an empty line |
| Linefeeds –> CR/LF | TYPE input_filename | MORE /E /P > output_filename | Converts "isolated" linefeeds to carriage return/linefeed pairs |
| List directories in PATH | FOR %%A IN (%PATH%) DO ECHO.%%A | Will fail if folder names contain spaces or parenthesis (i.e. all 64-bit Windows and most standard 32-bit Windows as well) |
| List directories in PATH | PATH | RXGREP "(?<=[;=])[^;=]*" | No problems with any characters in folder names. Requires RxGrep.exe. If "(?<=[;=])[^;=]*" is too hard to remember, use "[^;]" instead, this will prefix the first entry with PATH= but otherwise have identical results. |
| List files modified since ... (1) | XCOPY * "%TEMP%" /H /L /S /Y /D:12-29-2005 | Will lists all files modified since December 29, 2005, in the current directory and subdirectories. Regardless of language or international settings, the date format for XCOPY's /D switch is always M-D-Y. |
| List internal commands | STRINGS %ComSpec% | RXGREP "[\n\r]CLS[\n\r][\w\W\n\r]*COMSPEC[\n\r]" | SORT | RXGREP "([A-Z]+[\n\r]+)+" | SORT | Requires RxGrep.exe and Microsoft's Strings.exe. Tested only in Windows 7, so far. |
| Math | SET /A | Integers only |
| Check if a value is numeric | FOR /F "tokens=1 delims=0123456789" %%A IN ("%Value%") DO ( ECHO.%Value% is NOT a valid decimal, octal or binary number ) |
Positive numbers only, no hexadecimal. If the value is numeric the FOR loop won't iterate, because %VALUE% will contain nothing but delimiters. Use constructs like SET Invalid=1 inside the loop if you want to use the result outside the loop. |
| Check if a value is numeric | FOR /F "tokens=1 delims=-0123456789abcdefABCDEF" %%A IN ("%Value%") DO ( ECHO.%Value% is NOT a number ) |
All numbers, positive or negative, including hexadecimal without "x" or "0x" prefix. "False positive" on strings like "0FA7-A33E-7049-E444-1DEA". |
| Octal to Decimal | SET /A DecValue = 0%OctalString% | Maximum value 65536 (216) |
| Script's own startup drive | SET MyStartupDrive=%~d0 | |
| Script's own startup folder (without drive) | SET MyStartupFolder=%~p0 | Double quotes may be necessary for long folder names with spaces: "%~p0" |
| Script's own startup path | SET MyStartupPath=%~dp0 | Double quotes may be necessary for long folder names with spaces: "%~dp0" |
| Short File Name | FOR %%A IN ("filename.ext") DO ECHO.%%~snxA | Shows filename.ext's Short File Name (8.3 notation) |
| Short File Name | FOR %%A IN ("filename.ext") DO ECHO.%%~sfA | Shows filename.ext's fully qualified path as Short File Name (8.3 notation) |
| String Substitution | SET NewString=%OldString:old=new% | Substitutes "old" with "new" everywhere in the string %OldString%; case sensitive! |
| Time | ECHO.%Time% | Hours, minutes, seconds and hundredths of seconds |
| Time | FOR /F "tokens=1-3 delims=:.," %%A IN ("%Time%") DO ( SET Time=%%A:%%B:%%C ) |
Hours, minutes and seconds |
| Time | TIME /T | Hours and minutes only |
| Time | VER | TIME | FINDSTR /R /C:"[0-9]" | Hours, minutes, seconds and hundredths of seconds, prefixed by "The current time is" |
| Open Windows Update in Internet Explorer | WUPDMGR | Obsolete |
| Open Windows Update | START ms-settings:windowsupdate | Windows 8..11 |
| Wipe an empty partition or the empty space on a partition | > wipe.txt ECHO AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA FOR /L %%A IN (1,1,1000) DO (TYPE wipe.txt >> wipe.txt) DEL wipe.txt |
This may take some time... |
| Open .ZIP file in Explorer | RUNDLL32.EXE ZIPFLDR.DLL,RouteTheCall zipfile.ZIP | Unfortunately, there seems to be no (native) command to copy files into the .ZIP file |
| Notes: | (1) | When using XCOPY * "%TEMP%".../S on root directory of the drive where the %TEMP% directory is located, you may get an error message stating Cannot perform a cyclic copy.That's because the XCOPY command tries to copy the contents of the root directory and all its subfolders, including %TEMP%, to %TEMP%.To prevent this, you may either use a directory on a different drive as an alternative to %TEMP% (the /L switch prevents anything from actually being copied anyway), or use XCOPY's /EXCLUDE switch and exclude the %TEMP% directory. |
page last modified: 2023-10-30; loaded in 0.0021 seconds
