Creating Files using Batch

Introduction#

One useful feature of batch files is being able to create files with them. This section shows how to create files using batch code.

Syntax#

• echo (type here whatever you want in the to be) >> (filename)
• echo (variable name) >> (filename)

Remarks#

If a file exists, > will overwrite the file and >> will append to the end of the file. If a file does not exist, both will create a new file.

Also, the echo command automatically adds a newline after your string.

So

echo 1 > num.txt
echo 1 > num.txt 
echo 2 >> num.txt 

will create the following file:

1
2

Not this:

1 1 2

or

1 2

Furthermore, you cannot just modify a single line in a text file. You have to read the whole file, modify it in your code and then write to the whole file again.

Redirection

Format:

[command] [> | >>] [filename]

> saves the output of [command] into [filename].

>> appends the output of [command] into [filename].

Examples:

1. echo Hello World > myfile.txt saves “Hello World” into myfile.txt

2. echo your name is %name% >> myfile.txt appends “your name is xxxx” into myfile.txt

3. dir C:\ > directory.txt saves the directory of C:\ to directory.txt

Echo to create files

Ways to create a file with the echo command:

ECHO. > example.bat (creates an empty file called "example.bat")

ECHO message > example.bat (creates example.bat containing "message")
ECHO message >> example.bat (adds "message" to a new line in example.bat)
(ECHO message) >> example.bat (same as above, just another way to write it)

If you want to create a file via the ECHO command, in a specific directory on your computer, you might run into a problem.

ECHO Hello how are you? > C:\Program Files\example.bat

(This will NOT make a file in the folder "Program Files", and might show an error message)

But then how do we do it? Well it’s actually extremely simple… When typing a path or file name that has a space included in it’s name, then remember to use “quotes”

ECHO Hello how are you? > "C:\Program Files\example.bat"
(This will create "example.bat" in the folder "Program Files")

But what if you want to make a file that outputs a new file?

ECHO message > file1.bat > example.bat

(example.bat is NOT going to contain "message > file1.bat")
example.bat will just contain "message"... nothing else

Then how do we do this? Well for this we use the ^ symbol.

ECHO message ^> file1.bat > example.bat

(example.bat is going to contain "message > file1.bat")

Same goes for other stuff in batch

The next step requires you to have some knowledge about variables and statements:

click here to learn about variables | click here to learn about if and else statements

Variables:

SET example="text"
ECHO %example% > file.bat
(This will output "text" to file.bat)

if we don’t want it to output “text” but just plain %example% then write:

ECHO ^%example^% > file.bat
(This will output "%example%" to file.bat)

IF/ELSE statements:

ELSE statements are written with "pipes" ||

IF ^%example^%=="Hello" ECHO True || ECHO False > file.bat

(example.bat is going to contain "if %example%=="Hello" echo True")
[it ignores everything after the ELSE statement]

to output the whole line then we do the same as before.

IF ^%example^%=="Hello" ECHO True ^|^| ECHO False > file.bat

This will output:
IF %example%=="Hello" ECHO True || ECHO False

If the variable is equal to “Hello” then it will say “True”, ELSE it will say “False”

Saving the output of many commands

Using many ECHO commands to create a batch file:

(
  echo echo hi, this is the date today
  echo date /T
  echo echo created on %DATE%
  echo pause >nul
)>hi.bat

The command interpreter treats the whole section in parenthesis as a single command, then saves all the output to hi.bat.

hi.bat now contains:

echo hi, this is the date today
date /T
echo created on [date created]
pause >nul