Auto respond to command line prompts in a batch file?

[HarryBatt]

I am a reasonably experienced VBA developer and have recently started to integrate DOS scripts into my code. I have very little knolwdge of batch file scripting and wondered if there is any way of auto responding to command line prompts?

I have used telnet to send emails but as this requires user input I cannot automate this into a script abd call the shell function in VB.

The code sequence I use is:

telnet
o anydomain.co.uk 587
ehlo
auth login
Z2VycnloZWxtZUBaaaaataWRhc2VkdWNhdGlvbi 5jby51aw== '64 bit username
NHNjb3JcxxxxswaWFfffuMg==              '64 bit password
mail from:[email protected]
rcpt to:[email protected]
data
Message
echo.
quit

[marylane]

Try command line arguments.


or

echo Y |  your batch

[Salmon Trout]

Wow that's real helpful, Marybill. 

[marylane]

HarryBatt,

I see you have received several suggestions from the experts here at ComputerHope.

Good Luck

Many of the suggestions are from the UK.

[HarryBatt]

Commant line arguments sound like they will do the job... Just need to find out how to code them....

[BC_Programmer]

you can use a file for input by using redirection, I believe.

something like

Code: [Select]

telnet < ftpcommands.txt

in your case "ftpcommands.txt" or whatever you chose to name the file will need to contain the "code sequence" you gave, sans the "telnet" line at the top.

[marylane]

Command line arguments sound like they will do the job... Just need to find out how to code them....

Code: [Select]

@echo off

echo sleep.exe  %1
sleep.exe  %1

Output:

C:\>blog.bat   5

echo sleep.exe  5
sleep.exe  5

[marylane]

Command line arguments sound like they will do the job... Just need to find out how to code them....

 has it right, %* for everything. You might also find these useful:

%0 - the name of the batch file itself
%1 is the first command line parameter,
%2 is the second command line parameter,
and so on till %9 (and SHIFT can be used for those after the 9th).

%~dpnx0 - is the fully qualified path name of the script (d:\scripts\some-batch.bat)
%~dp0 - drive and path to the script (d:\scripts)

More info examples at http://www.ss64.com/nt/syntax-args.html and http://www.robvanderwoude.com/parameters.html

 

[HarryBatt]

Thanks all. I am just back from London having suffered torture by paperwork for my sons F1 visa in the US embassy. I will try to implement the suggestions today. Hopefully it will accept the text script anf fully qualified UNC path . Will report back. Thanks again