Advanced Batch File Programming Pdf

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I love shell scripting – it’s the duct tape of programming to me. Low cost, high benefit. And it feels like art, where one can learn to do increasingly complex tasks with greater simplicity.

Sadly, I feel like it’s a developer skill on the decline. Maybe new developers feel it’s “not real programming”. Perhaps the growing dominance of Java as the lingua franca of academic comp sci courses has made shell scripting less relevant in university settings.

A batch file is a file that contains a sequence, or batch, of commands. Batch files are useful for storing sets of commands that are always executed together because you can simply enter the name of the batch file, or double click on it, instead of entering each command individually. For example entering a copy or rename command. Tion, they can be used in batch files to temporarily hold information about the job at hand. In Windows 7, the initial environment variables that are defined when every Command Prompt win- dow is first opened are set up using the GUI shown in Figure 29.2. Shell programming is a 1950s juke box. Larry Wall In the simplest case, a script is nothing more than a list of system commands stored in a file. At the very least, this saves the effort of retyping that particular sequence of commands each time it is invoked. Cleanup: A script to clean up the log files in /var/log # Cleanup.

True, shell scripting feel a bit “vocational”, maybe even a bit unsexy compared to Python/Ruby/LISP/blah/blah/blah. Nevertheless, it’s a skill that becomes invaluable as you gain seniority and start doing more DevOps in you day job, or if you want to do some high-speed, low drag stuff to tailor your development environment like this.

  1. Advanced Batch File. This is the main batch file example which you can download here. Other than some minor changes this is the actual script I use at work when I logon to my PC. The first thing it does is mount an encrypted TrueCrypt Drive where all of my files and settings are located.
  2. Come to think of it, I'm not really sure why I didn't put this in the Slightly Advanced Batch. In any case, this command can be used to repeat a batch file by simply GOTO a label that executes the GOTO command again. @ECHO OFF:RepeatMeECHO This will be repeated unless you hit 'CTRL-C'GOTO RepeatMe The batch file speaks the truth, by the way.
  3. Example of a Batch file to delete all files from many floppy disks @ECHO OFF:TOP CLS ECHO Place disk with files no longer want in ECHO Drive A. PAUSE DEL /Q A:. ECHO Press Ctrl + C to stop executing this batch file. ECHO otherwise, press any key to continue deleting files. PAUSE NUL GOTOTOP.

Why Windows?

This series will share some of the tips and tricks I’ve picked up through the years of working with Windows professionally. I’ll be the first to admit the Unix shells of the world are far superior to the Windows command prompt (or even Windows PowerShell). Windows is a fact of life for most professionals writing code for coporate customers; this series aims to make life with Windows a little easier.

Why DOS-style Batch Files?

This series will share some conventions I picked up along the way for scripting in Windows via command prompt batch files. The Windows PowerShell is definitely sweet, but, I still like batch files for their portability and low friction. The Windows command line is very stable – no worrying about the PowerShell interpreter path, which version of PowerShell the server is running, etc.

Series Parts

First off, this is a single windows .bat file that I have written to do advanced batch scripting the easy way, meaning it's mostly a series of functions you can call from the script or within other functions for extremely modular code. Before you get all bent out of shape by my choice of words ('easy, modular'), when I say this is advanced I mean for Windows .bat files, one of the worlds worst scripting languages, but it works on all windows versions so it's ideal for things like autorun, autoplay, custom startups, usb drives, etc. If you are looking for information on how to use and program windows .bat files to do anything cool, this is the right place! I tried my best to mimic linux shell-scripting, so it's likely different than other batch files you have seen.

Batch File IDE and Script Source

My favorite tool (and I've tried sooo many) for editing most Windows files and especially .bat files is the free and open-source Notepad++. Set that up and you will have a color-syntax-highlighted editor for Batch Scripting that works very very well.

The next thing to do is download the source code, which includes comments and formatting I had to remove for this online article. Then rename from .txt to .bat and open in your IDE/text-editor of choice.

Quick Batch File Example

This is a simple batch file named ping-check.bat that I use when rebooting remote servers. The reboot is issued from an SSH session and causes the server to go down and then come back up. When the server goes down the network goes down too so I fire this script up to continually ping the remote server until it responds, at which point I can ssh back in.

One of the first hacks for batch files is line 1, the PUSHD command cd's the scripts working environment to the directory of the script itself.

Super-hero like even

Just added this as an after thought, moving the main example further down this page. This is an easier file to understand the scope of. It effectively creates SSH-encrypted SOCK5 tunnels that stay connected and auto-reconnect if the link goes down. I wanted to try and write a pure batch method to do that. I wrote this to run automatically from a USB key so that I could keep my tools with me portably. The thing of this script that is the most revolutionary is the method it uses to create auto-reconnecting SSH-encrypted SOCKS5 tunnels using the windows SYSTEM account to do it all in the background with plink.exe. The hack to run it as a system account is by using the built-in AT command to run interactively, which lets you interactively do whatever you want as the builtin NT AUTHORITY/SYSTEM account. The other part I am proud of with this is how lean I got the code, specifically how lean the function is that creates the at job to run every 5 minutes, while still doing connection-testing, all by parsing the cmd.exe processors builtin in DATE and TIME variables. Do a google search for 'windows batch file date and time' and you will appreciate just how lean this sucker is.

Almost forgot, check out the ways to keep a plink.exe (putty.exe for cmd.exe) SOCKS5 tunnel hidden and safe and continuously connected to a remote server in minimal lines od code. This was a fun one to work on! Enjoy (and remember this is just the warm-up example to glance at).

Advanced Batch File

This is the main batch file example which you can download here. Cracked games ios no jailbreak. Other than some minor changes this is the actual script I use at work when I logon to my PC. The first thing it does is mount an encrypted TrueCrypt Drive where all of my files and settings are located. It also starts a putty session named '1' that I configured to start a few encrypted tunnels and socks proxies so that my email Thunderbird and Website IDE Dreamweaver and other network apps can communicate 100% encrypted and my real location becomes hidden (thanks socks!).

I might come back later and add comments if I get any kind of response for this article, and because it's such a unique and low-traffic topic, I will try to answer any questions added with the comment form. Auto tune efx 3 free download for pc.

Starting the Script

The first line is of my own design and is perhaps the coolest hack in the script. I use this 1 line to start pretty much all of my .bat files.

SCRIPT VARIABLES

These are all local to this script thanks to the SETLOCAL above, so they won't exist outside the scripts execution environment.

MAIN PROGRAM EXECUTION

This is where the main code starts, note how small it is thanks to the use of functions (labels/call/goto). Read the comments in this area (start with :: or REM ) to see the extent of this script. The gold is in the functions.

Exit Script

This is the last line executed in the Main, it forces the script to exit cleanly at this point, otherwise the functions below would all get executed. This is what allows the use of all the functions below. I end all my scripts MAIN with this.

SCRIPT FUNCTIONS

Now then, onto the MEAT of the script, all the functions. These functions are designed for global use in other batch files, so that the only modification when you make a new batch is the above variables and main execution. If you know much about batch files you will realize that creating these functions was a very painful process in some cases. I freakin hate windows! Anyway, enjoy!

CRYPTMOUNT - mounts a truecrypt container and returns to CALLer. On fail, quit

RUNONE - Starts one instance of executable after verifying it exists and is not already running.

ADMINRUNONE - Runs %1 with admin rights IF neccessary

CHECKUSERVALID - checks that defined username equals %ADMINUSER% or %RUNUSER%, then returns to CALLer

SETPROMPT - sets prompt, then returns to CALLer

BEEP - beeps once, then returns to CALLer

The character after the echo is the actual BEL char, so unless you have my source file, you will need to copy a literal BEL char here to make it beep.

MSETCOLOR - SET colors for screen, then returns to CALLer

MSETCONSOLE - sets the cols and lines of current screen buffer, then returns to CALLer

PARAMTEST - tests params, then returns to CALLer

PARAMTESTHELP - show params help, then returns to CALLer

EXAMINEFILE - FINDs useful strings in file, then returns to CALLer

ADMINSHELL - sets prompt, then returns to CALLer

Advanced Batch File Programming Pdf File

EXISTORQUIT - checks %~1 exists, IF it does returns to CALLer, otherwise, quit

RR - IF file %1 EXISTs then :MT 'Removing %1' then :MF, then ( or IF %1 not EXISTs) returns to CALLer

LOCKDOWN - locks workstation, then returns to CALLer (pointless)

SHUTDOWNIN - initiates shutdown, then returns to CALLer (pointless)

LISTSERVICES - lists services, then returns to CALLer

TASKS - Advanced Tasklisting

SPEAK - Speak text

MF - SLEEPs for 1 second, then prints out completed message, followed by 2 blank lines, then returns to CALLer

MM - prints blank line, L1, changes title of the interpreter window to %~1, prints >>> %~1.., L2, blank line, then returns to CALLer

Advanced batch file programming pdf files

MT - prints blank line, L1, changes title of the interpreter window to %~1, prints >>> %~1.., L2, blank line, then returns to CALLer

MP - Print Output, then returns to CALLer

MP3 - ECHO %~1, speak %~1 with nircmd.exe, then returns to CALLer

MDYE - exit script with message %~1, then returns to CALLer

Advanced Batch File Programming Pdf Download

MKILL - exit cmd processor with message %~1

EOF: Thoughts

Advanced Batch File Programming Pdf

So what did you think? I have around 20 batch scripts that utilize these and other functions to do all sorts of cool things. One takes a screenshot of my desktop every 10 minutes and saves it for a real-cool archive of my activity. Another lets me edit a boot.ini file with 1 command. And another runs when I insert a USB drive to automatically mount a truecrypt volume and create SSH tunnels in the background by using Plink, AT, and the runas.exe command.

File

Advanced Ms-dos Batch File Programming Pdf

If you want to program, please use linux.. If you need to write a Windows batch file, I hope this helps.