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How can I do the following in a Windows batch file?

  1. Write to a file called subdir/localsettings.py
  2. Overwrite all existing content...
  3. ...with multiple lines of text...
  4. ...including a string that is "[current working directory]/subdir" (which I think might be %cd%/subdir?)

Please note, I want to do this as part of a batch script so I can't use con + Enter (at least, maybe I can, but I don't know how to simulate Enter as part of a batch script).

Thanks!

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migrated from superuser.com Mar 3 '11 at 13:18

1 Answer

up vote 13 down vote

Use output redirection > and >>

echo one>%file%
echo two>>%file%
echo three>>%file%

Or in a more readable way: (In cmd.exe, using "echo one >%file%" would include the whitespace before >.)

>%file%  echo one
>>%file% echo two
>>%file% echo three

You could also use:

(
    echo one
    echo two
    echo three
) >%file%
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For blank lines, echo. or echo= or echo: or... (There are quite a few separators that cmd.exe recognizes; not only space. So far I've discovered .;,/=+` with echo`) – grawity Mar 2 '11 at 20:46
1  
The selected answer omits stderr - while it may not be necessary in this question, when redirecting output you should consider that if the command line app outputs errors to stderr,simply using > or >> to redirect output will not catch the errors. You would need to use 2>&1 or 2>>&1 to redirect to the same file, or specify a different file. For example: net /? >StdOutLog.txt 2>StdErrLog.txt (the net command is a little odd in that it displays output to standard error - net subcommand displays to standard output, so net use >stdOutLog.txt 2>StdErrLog.txt will find data in stdOutLog.txt) – Multiverse IT Mar 2 '11 at 22:11
1  
@grawity echo. and the most others can collide with an existing file "echo" and they always forces a file system access, echo( seems to be "safe" – jeb Mar 4 '11 at 9:14
1  
@grawity: You are right, not all variants check for a file, but they are not "safe" against other "problems" like /? or on. Discussed here echo. fails – jeb Mar 4 '11 at 15:02
1  
@jeb: Re-tested my "safe" list; = fails with echo=/?, but the rest work. (Regarding your forum post: With / you can use echo//?, not echo/?. For a single question mark, simple echo ?. But by now any sane person would have ported the script into another language (the asker already has Python installed). It's what I would do, anyway.) – grawity Mar 4 '11 at 15:55
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