Echoing /?

[Kligham]

Hi,

I have a little problem. For an exercise i need to do the following:

Code: Select all

echo /? This is an optional parameter

But the problem is that it displays the help for echo command. I want it to display "/? This is an optional parameter".

I looked in google but couldn't find a solution. I tried with ^(the escape character), but that didn't help. So for now I do //?, but that's not a good solution =)

Grtz

[amel27]

Code: Select all

echo./?

[jeb]

Hi Kligam,

better use this variant

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echo(/?

For explanations you could look at http://www.dostips.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=774 "ECHO. FAILS to give text or blank line - Instead use ECHO/"


hope it helps
jeb

[orange_batch]

I like echo: best, source code aesthetics-wise. It kind of denotes speech like an RPG and looks along the lines of :labels and ::Comments.

[jeb]

Hi orange,

why I don't use "echo:" ?

I made some speed tests.
I measure the time for 1000 times echo a "x" in a small window

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echo x    3500ms
echo(x    3440ms
echo:x    3510ms    
echo.x    6940ms

The result: "echo " "echo(" and "echo:" seems to be equal, "echo." is really slow and it fails complete, if a file with the name "echo" exists.

But the next test fails also for the echo:

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echo \..\%~0    ~3500ms
echo(\..\%~0    ~3500ms
echo:\..\%~0    crash with infinite loop
echo.\..\%~0    crash with infinite loop

hope it helps
jeb

[orange_batch]

Indeed, but who would ever echo:\..\ etc?

[jeb]

But if I want to use something like BatchSubstitute on a file like

Code: Select all

..\..\src\main.c
..\..\src\convert.c

Then this code would fail

for /F %%A IN (myFile.txt) DO (
set line=%%A
echo:!line!
)