REM in multi-line commands

[Tom Del Rosso]

I just read in technet that REM statements are invalid inside multi-line
commands, but I use them all the time. Is that a NT1-4 thing?


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[foxidrive]

On 11/01/2012 12:40, Tom Del Rosso wrote:
> I just read in technet that REM statements are invalid inside multi-line
> commands, but I use them all the time. Is that a NT1-4 thing?
>
>

If you use this it skips the second echo

@echo off
echo abc&rem skip this&echo def&^
echo xyz
pause


but this works ok (XP SP3)


@echo off
echo abc&^
rem skip this&^
echo def
pause





--
Regards,
Mic

[Todd Vargo]

On 1/10/2012 8:40 PM, Tom Del Rosso wrote:
> I just read in technet that REM statements are invalid inside multi-line
> commands, but I use them all the time. Is that a NT1-4 thing?

While it may work, it is a good idea to avoid REM and/or labels in
multi-line statements to minimize unexplained errors.

In XP, it seems that once a multi-line REM error occurs, the batch will
continue to have unexplained errors, even after the error is corrected,
until the cmd session is closed and a new session opened. Ted Davis
refered to this anomaly of unexplained errors as XP's behavior randomizer.

--
Todd Vargo
(Post questions to group only. Remove "z" to email personal messages)

[Frank P. Westlake]

On 2012-01-10 17:40, Tom Del Rosso wrote:
>Is that a NT1-4 thing?

It began there then they made some repairs, but apparently it is not
completely usable. If I remember correctly, in NT4 this

(REM comment
command
)

became this when the line was loaded

(REM comment & command)

so that the result was unbalanced parentheses.

Frank

[I'm_HERE]

another solution with persistant stream:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8526946/commenting-multiple-lines-in-dos-batch-file/8533464#8533464

[Frank P. Westlake]

On 2012-01-11 09:47, I'm_HERE wrote:
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8526946/commenting-multiple-lines-in-dos-batch-file/8533464#8533464

I don't think I have access to submit messages to that group so I'll
comment here.

Probably the most versatile method is to make use of MS's original
concept of an environment variable, which is simply pasting in text.
This fails with delayed expansion (!var!) variables so the original type
(%var%) must be used.

Set "debug1=ECHO >NUL: "
Set "debug2="

%debug1% SomeStatement
%debug2% SomeOtherStatement

The 'debug1' line is printed to NUL: and the 'debug2' line is unaffected
because 'debug2' is undefined. I used two debug variables just to
demonstrate that lines can be selectively disabled from the top of the
script.

Frank