Finding /? in arguments

[Szecska]

I'm 100% certain this question has been asked and answered already, but its literally impossibble to search for.

I want to tell if the batch file's arguments contains `/?`.
I need to check every possible postion, then if it's present show a help message just like a com application do.

I tried

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(echo %*|findstr /r "\/?")&&goto help

but echo interprets /? and shows its own help message, thus rendering the trial useless.
This happens when I set %* as a variable, and expand it as %var% and !var! as well.

Can you redirect me to the answered post or copy the answer here?
Thanks in advance: Szecska

[jeb]

Hi Szecska,

you can use echo(

Code: Select all

(echo(%*|findstr /r "\/?")&&goto help

Looks odd and you could think, there is a missing closing parenthesis, but it's not.
echo( is the only construct, that seems to work in any situation and can output any string without interpreting it.

Take a look at ECHO. FAILS to give text or blank line - Instead use ...

[Szecska]

Thanks Jeb, i have absolutely no idea why I didn't think about that, but it even works with echo: which I actually use pretty often
But really thanks, you saved me from a huge headache

[AR Coding]

I'm 100% certain this question has been asked and answered already, but its literally impossibble to search for.

You can use also Google as a search engine. just add site:dostips.com in the search bar after whatever you want to search for.

[Szecska]

You can use also Google as a search engine. just add site:dostips.com in the search bar after whatever you want to search for.

Yeah, it does not work like this. Google cannot search punctuation marks and non alphanumeric symbols except for . and , ... And this is true to all major engines iikr.
That's why I wrote literally impossible.

[Squashman]

You can use also Google as a search engine. just add site:dostips.com in the search bar after whatever you want to search for.

Yeah, it does not work like this. Google cannot search punctuation marks and non alphanumeric symbols except for . and , ... And this is true to all major engines iikr.
That's why I wrote literally impossible.

"/?" site:dostips.com

[CJM]

I wrote this one-liner to handle (only in the first argument) the help command option in batch files:

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@For %%? in ("" : - /)do @IF %%~??==%1 GOTO:Help
...
:Help
...

It supports whatever leading switch characters you want to allow (in the FOR command set, except "*" which triggers a wildcard replacement for files in the current directory), but as shown will, as many .EXE programs do, accept these formats:

• ?
• :?
• -?
• /?

Sadly, this falls short of your requirement that it check all parameters (it does not, only the first argument), but perhaps you may find a use since it's more forgiving in it's syntax handling your choice of leading characters.

Also, as coded, when added at the beginning of a batch file, this one-liner permits the caller to bypass it's checking by quoting the argument, enabling a method to use any existing functionality that may also check for "/?" later in the batch file at run time, e.g.: cmdhelp.bat "/?"

[Szecska]

You can use also Google as a search engine. just add site:dostips.com in the search bar after whatever you want to search for.

Yeah, it does not work like this. Google cannot search punctuation marks and non alphanumeric symbols except for . and , ... And this is true to all major engines iikr.
That's why I wrote literally impossible.

"/?" site:dostips.com

Oh well, i must've been doing it wrong then

I wrote this one-liner to handle (only in the first argument) the help command option in batch files:

Code: Select all

@For %%? in ("" : - /)do @IF %%~??==%1 GOTO:Help
...
:Help
...

It supports whatever leading switch characters you want to allow (in the FOR command set, except "*" which triggers a wildcard replacement for files in the current directory), but as shown will, as many .EXE programs do, accept these formats:

• ?
• 
• -?
• /?

Sadly, this falls short of your requirement that it check all parameters (it does not, only the first argument), but perhaps you may find a use since it's more forgiving in it's syntax handling your choice of leading characters.

Also, as coded, when added at the beginning of a batch file, this one-liner permits the caller to bypass it's checking by quoting the argument, enabling a method to use any existing functionality that may also check for "/?" later in the batch file at run time, e.g.: cmdhelp.bat "/?"

Thank you CJM, but I've already found the solution with Jeb's help.

It's

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(echo(%*|findstr /r "\/?")&& goto help

or

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(echo:%*|findstr /r "\/?" >nul) && goto help

These can find the switch anywhere in the arguments, but if I want to include all the switch variants (except for the single ? beacuse that could be in a string and findstr cannot process regex that complicated The regex is (?=(?:[^"]*"[^"]*")*[^"]*$) ) it would become

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(echo:%*|findstr /r "[\/:-]?" >nul) && goto help