Ä Area: BATPOWER ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
  Msg#: 7                                            Date: 16 Sep 95  16:17:00
  From: Tony Baechler                                
    To: Larry Kwiatkowski                            
  Subj: Re: Why Doesn't the following work?
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ

Note: This is not a very good explanation, I leave it to the experts to
explain better.
-Quoting Larry Kwiatkowski to Tony Baechler, (13 Sep 95  13:54:00).

 LK> Yes, indeed, Tony - I have a tough time with the IF statements in
 LK> batch- files. Could you expand a bit on the use of IF ..... ELSE IF

I am not wonderful with that command myself, but if, for example, you
wanted to check for a file's existance, you might use:
IF EXIST FILENAME REM
IF NOT EXIST FILENAME REM

IF EXIST FILENAME basically says, "If this file is found, then ..."  I put
REM where you would put the "then" part of the statement.  For example,
you might use this:

IF EXIST \AUTOEXEC.BAT ECHO Found it.

Likewise, if not exist says, "If this file is NOT found then ..."  You
might use the following.

IF NOT EXIST \DV\DV.COM ECHO DesqView missing.

Another little trick is to use this to check for a directory which might
be empty.

IF EXIST \DV\NUL ECHO DV directory found.
IF NOT EXIST \DV\NUL ECHO The DV directory is missing.

Another form of the IF command can be best described with a little BASIC
example.

1 IF A$= "TEST" THEN GOTO 3

The batch equivalent would be:

IF %A$ "TEST" GOTO TEST

There is no "then" statement in if commands with batch files.  There is
also no line numbers.

If you want to write a batch file to check for command line parameters,
you might write a little batch like this.

@ECHO OFF
IF "%1" == "" GOTO NOPARM
ECHO %1
GOTO END
:NOPARM
ECHO No command line parameters.
:END

"%1" is the first parameter passed to a batch file on the command line, %2
is the second, etc.  BASIC uses COMMAND$ for this and makes you separate
each part yourself.  Batch splits each parameter (I.E. each thing ending
in a space) into a different variable.

Note: I am saving this message, if any one wants to use or repost this,
that is fine.
Fido: 1:202/1207.4, Email: baechler@cts.com, ftp://ftp.europa.com
//outgoing/baechler, www: ftp://ftp.europa.com//outgoing/baechlerÂ
... Top Secret Message:  Please Read, Print, and Eat.