CODEWITHSUNDEEP
windowsbatch-filecmd
davitof
davitof

Reputation: 161

Long commands split over multiple lines in Windows with quotes

Using the caret to split lines,

dir ^
*.bat ^
/w

works as expected, but

dir ^
"*.bat" ^

won't let me enter the "/w". I guess the caret does not work after a double quote. Is this a bug? Or if this is a feature, what is it's use and how can I get around it?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 3962

Answers (2)

alethurgy
alethurgy

Reputation: 41

An alternative solution that has worked for me (Windows Server 2012) is to include a tab on the subsequent line. For example:

dir ^
    "*.bat" ^
    /w

In my experience a tab character can replace a space when delimiting arguments to a command or script. I also feel that this has a cleaner look.

However, I haven't spent time testing it under every possible batch-file syntax scenario and it's possible there are some where it won't apply or work properly.

Upvotes: 4

davitof
davitof

Reputation: 161

I found the answer myself:

dir ^
 ^"*.bat^" ^ 
 /w

works as I want. In the second line there must be spaces before the first caret and after the last. (using Vista SP2)

Upvotes: 6

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