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Chapter 3: Command Line Scripting Essentials

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Chapter 3: Command Line Scripting Essentials

Overview

In a world dominated by whiz-bang graphical user interfaces, you may wonder what command-line scripting has to offer that Microsoft Windows and point- and-click dialog boxes don’t. Well, to be honest, more than most people realize, especially considering that most people regard command-line scripts as glorified batch files—the kind you used on computers with 8088 processors and MS-DOS. Today’s command-line scripting environment is an extensive programming environment, which includes

Variables
Arithmetic expressions
Conditional statements
Control flow statements
Procedures

You can use these programming elements to automate repetitive tasks , perform complex operations while you’re away from the computer, find resources that others may have misplaced, and perform many other time-saving activities that you would normally have to type in at the keyboard. Command-line scripts not only have complete access to the command line, they can also call any utilities that have command-line extensions, including the Windows Support Tools and the Windows Resource Kit tools.

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Creating Command Line Scripts

Command line scripts are text files containing the commands you want to execute. These are the same commands you would normally type into the Windows command shell. However, rather than enter the commands each time you want to use them, you create a script to store the commands for easy execution.

Because scripts contain standard text characters , you can create and edit scripts using a standard text editor, such as Notepad. When you enter commands, be sure to place each command or group of commands that should be executed together on a new line. This ensures proper execution of the commands. When you have finished creating a command-line script, save the script file using the .bat or .cmd extension. Both extensions work with command-line scripts in the same way. For example, if you wanted to create a script to display the system name , Windows version and IP configuration, you could enter these three commands into a file called SysInfo.bat or SysInfo.cmd:

hostname


ver


ipconfig -all

Once you save the script, you can execute it as if it were a Windows utility; simply type the name of the script in a command shell and press Enter. When you do this, the command shell reads the script file and executes its commands one by one. It stops executing the script when it reaches the end of the file or reads an EXIT command. For the example script, the command line would display output similar to Listing 3-1.

Listing 3-1: Output of Sample Script

C:\>hostname


mailer1




C:\>ver


Microsoft Windows [Version 5.2.3790]




C:\>ipconfig -all


Windows IP Configuration


Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : mailer1


Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : adatum.com


Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown


IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No


WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No


DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : adatum.com




Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:




Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :


Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network


Connection


Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : X0-EF-D7-AB-E2-1E


DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No


IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.10.50


Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0


Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.10.1


DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.10.155

If you examine the listing, you’ll see that the command prompt and the actual commands are displayed as well as the output of the commands themselves . The reason for this is that the command shell does some extra work behind the scenes while executing scripts in the default processing mode. First, the command shell displays the command prompt. Next, it reads a line from the script, displays it, and then interprets it. If the command shell reaches the end of the file or reads an EXIT command, execution stops. Otherwise, the command shell starts this process all over again by displaying the prompt and preparing to read the next line in the script.

Although the default processing mode with command echoing on can be useful for troubleshooting problems in scripts, you probably don’t want to use this display mode with scripts you’ll use regularly. Fortunately, you can change the default behavior by turning command echo off, as I’ll show you later in the chapter in the section titled “Managing Text Display and Command Echoing.”

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