How to interact with command-line program using batch file

batch filewindows

I would like to write a batch/cmd script to pass arguments to another command-line program.

However, I'd like to display the output of that program in the batch file, and be able to interact with the program normally.

Effectively, the batch file becomes a transparent way to access the program.

How do I do this?

Best Answer

I couldn't understand the question very clearly but call is the command that comes to my mind. It is an internal command being a feature of cmd.exe as external commands exist as separate executable files, usually in %SystemRoot%\System32 folder.

call command executes other batch files (with .bat extension) within the calling script and may pass arguments to that external executable file assigned as to its parameters.

Moreover, call command may call for label (defined as :MyLabel inside the batch file, and otherwisely intended and working with GOTO command as points or sections in a batch file to switch the execution to, which is an old and might also be a wrong feature) within the script itself without referring to any external batch file.

The command is well documented in an SS64 page, and it's main difference from just calling the other script or executable file without any using any command, say as MyScript.bat or MyExecutable.exe is that it doesn't leave and exit the current script when calling or upon the external script's finishing, keeping it in the current session, and comes back to and continues executing the calling script's following lines, where the call is originated from.

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Windows – Redirecting input from file to command-line program

You can automate interactive command line programs using expect

Here's an example (for telnet) from the Wikipedia article

# Assume $remote_server, $my_user_id, $my_password, and $my_command were read in earlier 
# in the script.
# Open a telnet session to a remote server, and wait for a username prompt.
spawn telnet $remote_server
expect "username:"
# Send the username, and then wait for a password prompt.
send "$my_user_id\r"
expect "password:"
# Send the password, and then wait for a shell prompt.
send "$my_password\r"
expect "%"
# Send the prebuilt command, and then wait for another shell prompt.
send "$my_command\r"
expect "%"
# Capture the results of the command into a variable. This can be displayed, or written to disk.
set results $expect_out(buffer)
# Exit the telnet session, and wait for a special end-of-file character.
send "exit\r"
expect eof

It should be clear that you can use this approach for your program as you know the prompt strings and you know what responses to feed it.

Windows – Running a batch file command with arguments

Answer for any Googlers - the issue was not in the passing of the parameters to openssl, it was in the encoding of the batch file itself.

Once I changed the encoding in my editor (Notepad++) to Windows-1252, the batch ran the commands with ease and didn't need any special /-instead-of-- approach.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Windows – Redirecting input from file to command-line program

Windows – Running a batch file command with arguments

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