Add a new line to a text file in MS-DOS - batch-file

I am making a .bat file, and I would like it to write ASCII art into a text file.
I was able to find the command to append a new line to the file when echoing text, but when I read that text file, all I see is a layout-sign and not a space. I think it would work by opening that file with Word or even WordPad, but I would like it to work on any computer, even if that computer only has Notepad (which is mostly the case).
How can I open the text file in a certain program (i.e. WordPad) or write a proper space character to the file?
EDIT:
I found that it is the best way to use:
echo <line1> > <filename>
echo <line2> >> <filename>
P.S. I used | in my ASCII art, so it crashed, Dumb Dumb Dumb :)

echo Hello, > file.txt
echo. >>file.txt
echo world >>file.txt
and you can always run:
wordpad file.txt
on any version of Windows.
On Windows 2000 and above you can do:
( echo Hello, & echo. & echo world ) > file.txt
Another way of showing a message for a small amount of text is to create file.vbs containing:
Msgbox "Hello," & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "world", 0, "Message"
Call it with
cscript /nologo file.vbs
Or use wscript if you don't need it to wait until they click OK.
The problem with the message you're writing is that the vertical bar (|) is the "pipe" operator. You'll need to escape it by using ^| instead of |.
P.S. it's spelled Pwned.

You can easily append to the end of a file, by using the redirection char twice (>>).
This will copy source.txt to destination.txt, overwriting destination in the process:
type source.txt > destination.txt
This will copy source.txt to destination.txt, appending to destination in the process:
type source.txt >> destination.txt

Maybe this is what you want?
echo foo > test.txt
echo. >> test.txt
echo bar >> test.txt
results in the following within test.txt:
foo
bar

echo "text to echo" > file.txt

Use the following:
echo (text here) >> (name here).txt
Ex. echo my name is jeff >> test.txt
test.txt
my name is jeff
You can use it in a script too.

I always use copy con to write text, It so easy to write a long text
Example:
C:\COPY CON [drive:][path][File name]
.... Content
F6
1 file(s) is copied

Related

How to Merge all Text files in a Single file with Broken Lines?

I'm using the codes below to combine all text files from a folder to a simple files, the problem is that the code does not break lines and ends up blending the words.
copy *.txt Combined.txt
Echo.
Echo Done!
Echo.
pause
When it ends it, he stay like this:
abcblue
123abcyellow
123abc
When I expected it to go like this:
ABC
blue
123
abc
yellow
123
abc
Whats wrong?
NOTE: I found this snippet of code on the internet and it looks like the subject:
FOR %f IN (*.txt) DO type %f >> Combined.txt & echo. >> Combined.txt
In this context:
type file1.txt >> newfile.txt
echo. >> newfile.txt
type file2.txt >> newfile.txt
echo. >> newfile.txt
type file3.txt >> newfile.txt
echo. >> newfile.txt
But I need it to automatically grab all text files and combine.
As long as the files are properly formed Windows (CRLF) ANSI text files then you could consider using Type?
Type *.txt>"..\Combined.txt"
This 'should' write to Combined.txt in the parent of the current directory. I have done this to prevent the command from trying to read it's own content, as it is also a .txt file. Feel free to replace "..\Combined.txt" with a specific path if you prefer.
If you would like the file names above each output .txt file then try changing the command to this:
Type *.txt>"..\Combined.txt" 2>&1
Edit
An additional option which also should prepend files with their names:
Find/V "" *.txt>"..\Combined.txt"

Write "<" or ">" to a .txt file

I want to write "<" or ">" symbol to a text files.
There's an examle of what I tried:
echo echo. >file2.txt>file1.txt
But that doesn't work.
What I want is to make the batch file make file2.txt with this text below:
echo. >file1.txt
Does anybody know how to do that?
Escape the < or > using ^. Note to actually redirect to a file, you'll need an extra redirect operator.
Here's an example using > - the same solution works for < (and % as well).
echo .^> > file.txt
So to get the results you want (a text file containing echo. file2.txt > file1.txt) in a text file named redir.txt:
echo echo. file2.txt ^> file1.txt > redir.txt
The end result in redir.txt:
c:\temp>type redir.txt
echo. file2.txt > file.txt
Is this DOS? Look here:
http://www.robvanderwoude.com/escapechars.php
you have to use a caret "^". echo ^>
PHP use a \
http://php.net/manual/en/regexp.reference.escape.php
Is it Unix? Use quotes.

Bat file to create & write to a file

I'm trying to create and write to a file using .bat
#echo off
echo Jackdows loves my big sphinx >> %appdata%\data.html
echo Of quartz. >> %appdata%\data.html
exit
Works properly. However, if user runs it again, it writes the same values to the file again. So in the files, there are multiple values. Is it possible to prevent this ?
>> appends text to a file regardless of whether it exists elsewhere in the file or not. You can, however, search the file first for the string and then only append the line if it does not already exist.
#echo off
:: Appends a string to a file only if that string is not present in that file
call :ainp "Jackdaws love my big sphinx" text.txt
call :ainp "Of quartz" text.txt
call :ainp "Rule Brittania" text.txt
exit /b
:: Append If Not Present
:AINP
set "search_string=%~1"
set "search_file=%~2"
>nul find "%search_string%" %search_file%
if %errorlevel% equ 1 (
>>%search_file% echo %search_string%
)

Use a batch file to write txt to another file

How would i add this text to a file because it seems to get confused with the other greater than less than signs thanks
echo >> C:\docs\thisdoc.txt
If I've got you right, you want to write the text "echo >> c:\docs\thisdoc.txt" in a file? Then you need to escape the ">"characters with "^":
echo echo ^>^> C:\docs\thisdoc.txt > mybatch.cmd

Displaying Windows command prompt output and redirecting it to a file

How can I run a command-line application in the Windows command prompt and have the output both displayed and redirected to a file at the same time?
If, for example, I were to run the command dir > test.txt, this would redirect output to a file called test.txt without displaying the results.
How could I write a command to display the output and redirect output to a file in the Windows command prompt, similar to the tee command on Unix?
To expand on davor's answer, you can use PowerShell like this:
powershell "dir | tee test.txt"
If you're trying to redirect the output of an exe in the current directory, you need to use .\ on the filename, eg:
powershell ".\something.exe | tee test.txt"
I was able to find a solution/workaround of redirecting output to a file and then to the console:
dir > a.txt | type a.txt
where dir is the command which output needs to be redirected, a.txt a file where to store output.
There's a Win32 port of the Unix tee command, that does exactly that. See http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/ or http://getgnuwin32.sourceforge.net/
Check this out: wintee
No need for cygwin.
I did encounter and report some issues though.
Also you might check unxutils because it contains tee (and no need for cygwin), but beware that output EOL's are UNIX-like here.
Last, but not least, is if you have PowerShell, you could try Tee-Object. Type get-help tee-object in PowerShell console for more info.
#tori3852
I found that
dir > a.txt | type a.txt
didn't work (first few lines of dir listing only - suspect some sort of process forking and the second part, the 'type' command terminated before the dire listing had completed? ),
so instead I used:
dir > z.txt && type z.txt
which did - sequential commands, one completes before the second starts.
A simple C# console application would do the trick:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
namespace CopyToFiles
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
var buffer = new char[100];
var outputs = new List<TextWriter>();
foreach (var file in args)
outputs.Add(new StreamWriter(file));
outputs.Add(Console.Out);
int bytesRead;
do
{
bytesRead = Console.In.ReadBlock(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
outputs.ForEach(o => o.Write(buffer, 0, bytesRead));
} while (bytesRead == buffer.Length);
outputs.ForEach(o => o.Close());
}
}
}
To use this you just pipe the source command into the program and provide the path of any files you want to duplicate the output to. For example:
dir | CopyToFiles files1.txt files2.txt
Will display the results of dir as well as store the results in both files1.txt and files2.txt.
Note that there isn't much (anything!) in the way of error handling above, and supporting multiple files may not actually be required.
Unfortunately there is no such thing.
Windows console applications only have a single output handle. (Well, there are two STDOUT, STDERR but it doesn't matter here) The > redirects the output normally written to the console handle to a file handle.
If you want to have some kind of multiplexing you have to use an external application which you can divert the output to. This application then can write to a file and to the console again.
This works, though it's a bit ugly:
dir >_ && type _ && type _ > a.txt
It's a little more flexible than some of the other solutions, in that it works statement-by-statement so you can use it to append as well. I use this quite a bit in batch files to log and display messages:
ECHO Print line to screen and log to file. >_ && type _ && type _ >> logfile.txt
Yes, you could just repeat the ECHO statement (once for the screen and the second time redirecting to the logfile), but that looks just as bad and is a bit of a maintenance issue. At least this way you don't have to make changes to messages in two places.
Note that _ is just a short filename, so you'll need to make sure to delete it at the end of your batch file (if you're using a batch file).
I’d like to expand a bit on Saxon Druce’s excellent answer.
As stated, you can redirect the output of an executable in the current directory like so:
powershell ".\something.exe | tee test.txt"
However, this only logs stdout to test.txt. It doesn’t also log stderr.
The obvious solution would be to use something like this:
powershell ".\something.exe 2>&1 | tee test.txt"
However, this won’t work for all something.exes. Some something.exes will interpret the 2>&1 as an argument and fail. The correct solution is to instead only have apostrophes around the something.exe and its switches and arguments, like so:
powershell ".\something.exe --switch1 --switch2 … arg1 arg2 …" 2^>^&1 ^| tee test.txt
Notice though, that in this case you have to escape the special cmd-shell characters ">&|" with a "^" each so they only get interpreted by powershell.
mtee is a small utility which works very well for this purpose. It's free, source is open, and it Just Works.
You can find it at http://www.commandline.co.uk.
Used in a batch file to display output AND create a log file simultaneously, the syntax looks like this:
someprocess | mtee /+ mylogfile.txt
Where /+ means to append output.
This assumes that you have copied mtee into a folder which is in the PATH, of course.
I agree with Brian Rasmussen, the unxutils port is the easiest way to do this. In the Batch Files section of his Scripting Pages Rob van der Woude provides a wealth of information on the use MS-DOS and CMD commands. I thought he might have a native solution to your problem and after digging around there I found TEE.BAT, which appears to be just that, an MS-DOS batch language implementation of tee. It is a pretty complex-looking batch file and my inclination would still be to use the unxutils port.
If you have cygwin in your windows environment path you can use:
dir > a.txt | tail -f a.txt
dir 1>a.txt 2>&1 | type a.txt
This will help to redirect both STDOUT and STDERR
I know this is a very old topic, but in previous answers there is not a full implementation of a real time Tee written in Batch. My solution below is a Batch-JScript hybrid script that use the JScript section just to get the output from the piped command, but the processing of the data is done in the Batch section. This approach have the advantage that any Batch programmer may modify this program to fit specific needs. This program also correctly process the output of CLS command produced by other Batch files, that is, it clear the screen when CLS command output is detected.
#if (#CodeSection == #Batch) #then
#echo off
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
rem APATee.bat: Asynchronous (real time) Tee program, Batch-JScript hybrid version
rem Antonio Perez Ayala
rem The advantage of this program is that the data management is written in Batch code,
rem so any Batch programmer may modify it to fit their own needs.
rem As an example of this feature, CLS command is correctly managed
if "%~1" equ "" (
echo Duplicate the Stdout output of a command in the screen and a disk file
echo/
echo anyCommand ^| APATee teeFile.txt [/A]
echo/
echo If /A switch is given, anyCommand output is *appended* to teeFile.txt
goto :EOF
)
if "%2" equ ":TeeProcess" goto TeeProcess
rem Get the output of CLS command
for /F %%a in ('cls') do set "cls=%%a"
rem If /A switch is not provided, delete the file that receives Tee output
if /I "%~2" neq "/A" if exist %1 del %1
rem Create the semaphore-signal file and start the asynchronous Tee process
echo X > Flag.out
if exist Flag.in del Flag.in
Cscript //nologo //E:JScript "%~F0" | "%~F0" %1 :TeeProcess
del Flag.out
goto :EOF
:TeeProcess
rem Wait for "Data Available" signal
if not exist Flag.in goto TeeProcess
rem Read the line sent by JScript section
set line=
set /P line=
rem Set "Data Read" acknowledgement
ren Flag.in Flag.out
rem Check for the standard "End Of piped File" mark
if "!line!" equ ":_EOF_:" exit /B
rem Correctly manage CLS command
if "!line:~0,1!" equ "!cls!" (
cls
set "line=!line:~1!"
)
rem Duplicate the line in Stdout and the Tee output file
echo(!line!
echo(!line!>> %1
goto TeeProcess
#end
// JScript section
var fso = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
// Process all lines of Stdin
while ( ! WScript.Stdin.AtEndOfStream ) {
// Read the next line from Stdin
var line = WScript.Stdin.ReadLine();
// Wait for "Data Read" acknowledgement
while ( ! fso.FileExists("Flag.out") ) {
WScript.Sleep(10);
}
// Send the line to Batch section
WScript.Stdout.WriteLine(line);
// Set "Data Available" signal
fso.MoveFile("Flag.out", "Flag.in");
}
// Wait for last "Data Read" acknowledgement
while ( ! fso.FileExists("Flag.out") ) {
WScript.Sleep(10);
}
// Send the standard "End Of piped File" mark
WScript.Stdout.WriteLine(":_EOF_:");
fso.MoveFile("Flag.out", "Flag.in");
I was also looking for the same solution, after a little try, I was successfully able to achieve that in Command Prompt. Here is my solution :
#Echo off
for /f "Delims=" %%a IN (xyz.bat) do (
%%a > _ && type _ && type _ >> log.txt
)
#Echo on
It even captures any PAUSE command as well.
Something like this should do what you need?
%DATE%_%TIME% > c:\a.txt & type c:\a.txt
ipconfig >> c:\a.txt & type c:\a.txt
ping localhost >> c:\a.txt & type c:\a.txt
pause
Here's a sample of what I've used based on one of the other answers
#echo off
REM SOME CODE
set __ERROR_LOG=c:\errors.txt
REM set __IPADDRESS=x.x.x.x
REM Test a variable
if not defined __IPADDRESS (
REM Call function with some data and terminate
call :TEE %DATE%,%TIME%,IP ADDRESS IS NOT DEFINED
goto :EOF
)
REM If test happens to be successful, TEE out a message and end script.
call :TEE Script Ended Successful
goto :EOF
REM THE TEE FUNCTION
:TEE
for /f "tokens=*" %%Z in ("%*") do (
> CON ECHO.%%Z
>> "%__ERROR_LOG%" ECHO.%%Z
goto :EOF
)
send output to console, append to console log, delete output from current command
dir >> usb-create.1 && type usb-create.1 >> usb-create.log | type usb-create.1 && del usb-create.1
This is a variation on a previous answer by MTS, however it adds some functionality that might be useful to others. Here is the method that I used:
A command is set as a variable, that can be used later throughout the code, to output to the command window and append to a log file, using set _Temp_Msg_Cmd=
the command has escaped redirection using the carrot ^ character so that the commands are not evaluated initially
A temporary file is created with a filename similar to the batch file being run called %~n0_temp.txt that uses command line parameter extension syntax %~n0 to get the name of the batch file.
The output is appended to a separate log file %~n0_log.txt
Here is the sequence of commands:
The output and error messages are sent to the temporary file ^> %~n0_temp.txt 2^>^&1
The content of the temporary file is then both:
appended to the logfile ^& type %~n0_temp.txt ^>^> %~n0_log.txt
output to the command window ^& type %~n0_temp.txt
The temporary file with the message is deleted ^& del /Q /F %~n0_temp.txt
Here is the example:
set _Temp_Msg_Cmd= ^> %~n0_temp.txt 2^>^&1 ^& type %~n0_temp.txt ^>^> %~n0_log.txt ^& type %~n0_temp.txt ^& del /Q /F %~n0_temp.txt
This way then the command can simply be appended after later commands in a batch file that looks a lot cleaner:
echo test message %_Temp_Msg_Cmd%
This can be added to the end of other commands as well. As far as I can tell it will work when messages have multiple lines. For example the following command outputs two lines if there is an error message:
net use M: /D /Y %_Temp_Msg_Cmd%
Just like unix.
dir | tee a.txt
Does work On windows XP, it requires mksnt installed.
It displays on the prompt as well as appends to the file.
This is not another answer, but more an overview and clarification to the already existed answers like
Displaying Windows command prompt output and redirecting it to a file
and others
I've found for myself that there is a set of issues what makes a set of tee implementations are not reliable in the Windows (Windows 7 in mine case).
I need to use specifically a tee implementation because have already uses a batch script with self redirection:
#echo off
setlocal
... some conditions here ..
rem the redirection
"%COMSPEC%" /C call %0 %* 2>&1 | "<path_to_tee_utililty>" ".log\<log_file_name_with_date_and_time>.%~nx0.log"
exit /b
:IMPL
... here the rest of script ...
The script and calls to some utilities inside the script can break the output if used together with a tee utility.
The gnuwin32 implementation:
http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/coreutils.htm
Pros:
Correctly handles standard output together with a console progress bar, where the \r character is heavily used.
Cons:
Makes console progress bars to draw only in a log file, but it has not duplicated or visible in the console window.
Throws multiple error messages Cwrite error: No such file or directory because seems the cmd interpreter closes the pipe/stdout too early and can not self close after that (spamming until termination).
Does not duplicate/print the output from the pause command (Press any key to continue...) in the console window.
The wintee implementation:
https://code.google.com/archive/p/wintee/
https://github.com/rbuhl/wintee
Pros:
Shows a console progress bar both in the console window and in a log file (multiple prints).
Does duplicate/print the output from the pause command (Press any key to continue...) in the console window.
Cons:
Incorrectly handles the \r character, output is mixed and messed (https://code.google.com/archive/p/wintee/issues/7 ).
Having other issues: https://code.google.com/archive/p/wintee/issues
The UnxUtils implementation:
http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/
https://sourceforge.net/projects/unxutils/files/unxutils/current/
Pros
Shows a console progress bar both in the console window and in a log file (multiple prints).
Correctly handles the \r character.
Does duplicate/print the output from the pause command (Press any key to continue...) in the console window.
Cons
Not yet found
The ss64.net implementation:
http://ss64.net/westlake/nt
http://ss64.net/westlake/nt/tee.zip
Pros:
Shows a console progress bar both in the console window and in a log file (multiple prints).
Cons:
Incorrectly handles the \r character, output is mixed and messed
For some reason does duplicate/print the output from the pause command (Press any key to continue...) in the console window AFTER a key press.
The ritchielawrence mtee implementation:
https://ritchielawrence.github.io/mtee
https://github.com/ritchielawrence/mtee
Pros
Shows a console progress bar both in the console window and in a log file (multiple prints).
Correctly handles the \r character.
Does duplicate/print the output from the pause command (Press any key to continue...) in the console window.
The error code retain feature w/o a need to use workaround with the doskey (/E flag, Windows command interpreter: how to obtain exit code of first piped command )
Cons
Does not support forward slash characters in the path to a log file (https://github.com/ritchielawrence/mtee/issues/6 )
Has a race condition issue, when can not extract a pipe process exit code because it has closed before it's access (https://github.com/ritchielawrence/mtee/issues/4 )
So, if you are choosing the tee utility implementation between the above, then a better choice is the UnxUtils or mtee.
If you are searching for a better implementation with more features and less issues, then you can use callf utility:
https://github.com/andry81/contools/blob/trunk/Utilities/src/callf/help.tpl
You can run instead of:
call test.bat | mtee /E 1.log
This:
callf.exe /ret-child-exit /tee-stdout 1.log /tee-stdout-dup 1 "" "cmd.exe /c call test.bat"
It is better because it can pipe stdout separately from stderr and you can even pipe between processes with Administrator privileges isolation using named pipes.
#echo on
set startDate=%date%
set startTime=%time%
set /a sth=%startTime:~0,2%
set /a stm=1%startTime:~3,2% - 100
set /a sts=1%startTime:~6,2% - 100
fullprocess.bat > C:\LOGS\%startDate%_%sth%.%stm%.%sts%.LOG | fullprocess.bat
This will create a log file with the current datetime and you can the console lines during the process
I use a batch subroutine with a "for" statement to get the command output one line at a time and both write that line to a file and output it to the console.
#echo off
set logfile=test.log
call :ExecuteAndTee dir C:\Program Files
Exit /B 0
:ExecuteAndTee
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
echo Executing '%*'
for /f "delims=" %%a in ('%* 2^>^&1') do (echo.%%a & echo.%%a>>%logfile%)
endlocal
Exit /B 0
If you're on the CLI, why not use a FOR loop to "DO" whatever you want:
for /F "delims=" %a in ('dir') do #echo %a && echo %a >> output.txt
Great resource on Windows CMD for loops: https://ss64.com/nt/for_cmd.html
The key here is setting the delimeters (delims), that would break up each line of output, to nothing. This way it won't break on the default of white-space. The %a is an arbitrary letter, but it is used in the "do" section to, well... do something with the characters that were parsed at each line. In this case we can use the ampersands (&&) to execute the 2nd echo command to create-or-append (>>) to a file of our choosing. Safer to keep this order of DO commands in case there's an issue writing the file, we'll at least get the echo to the console first. The at sign (#) in front of the first echo suppresses the console from showing the echo-command itself, and instead just displays the result of the command which is to display the characters in %a. Otherwise you'd see:
echo Volume in drive [x] is Windows Volume in drive [x] is Windows
UPDATE: /F skips blank lines and only fix is to pre-filter the output adding a character to every line (maybe with line-numbers via the command find). Solving this in CLI isn't quick or pretty. Also, I didn't include STDERR, so here's capturing errors as well:
for /F "delims=" %a in ('dir 2^>^&1') do #echo %a & echo %a >> output.txt
Redirecting Error Messages
The carets (^) are there to escape the symbols after them, because the command is a string that's being interpreted, as opposed to say, entering it directly on the command-line.
I just found a way to use the perl as alternative, e.g.:
CMD1 | perl -ne "print $_; print STDERR $_;" 2> OUTPUT.TEE
Following helps if you want something really seen on the screen - even if the batch file was redirected to a file. The device CON maybe used also if redirected to a file
Example:
ECHO first line on normal stdout. maybe redirected
ECHO second line on normal stdout again. maybe redirected
ECHO third line is to ask the user. not redirected >CON
ECHO fourth line on normal stdout again. maybe redirected
Also see good redirection description: http://www.p-dd.com/chapter7-page14.html
How do I display and redirect output
to a file. Suppose if I use dos
command, dir > test.txt ,this command
will redirect output to file test.txt
without displaying the results. how to
write a command to display the output
and redirect output to a file using
DOS i.e., windows command prompt, not
in UNIX/LINUX.
You may find these commands in biterscripting ( http://www.biterscripting.com ) useful.
var str output
lf > $output
echo $output # Will show output on screen.
echo $output > "test.txt" # Will write output to file test.txt.
system start "test.txt" # Will open file test.txt for viewing/editing.
This works in real time but is also kind a ugly and the performance is slow. Not well tested either:
#echo off
cls
SET MYCOMMAND=dir /B
ECHO File called 'test.bat' > out.txt
for /f "usebackq delims=" %%I in (`%MYCOMMAND%`) do (
ECHO %%I
ECHO %%I >> out.txt
)
pause
An alternative is to tee stdout to stderr within your program:
in java:
System.setOut(new PrintStream(new TeeOutputStream(System.out, System.err)));
Then, in your dos batchfile: java program > log.txt
The stdout will go to the logfile and the stderr (same data) will show on the console.
I install perl on most of my machines so an answer using perl: tee.pl
my $file = shift || "tee.dat";
open $output, ">", $file or die "unable to open $file as output: $!";
while(<STDIN>)
{
print $_;
print $output $_;
}
close $output;
dir | perl tee.pl
or
dir | perl tee.pl dir.bat
crude and untested.

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