XCOPY: Asking for the destination folder

[Neodudeman]

How could I have the .bat file ask for the destination folder.

In this case I want the batch to copy a folder from my C:\ to my flash drive, but I will be using this batch on multiple computers, and the flash drive may be K:\ on one computer, but can easily change to I:\ on another. So how would I do that?

All computers Windows XP

[Sidewinder]

With XP you're in luck. Use the set command to get input from the user.

Code: [Select]

@echo off
set /p var=Enter destination folder:
xcopy sourcefolder %var%

Hope this helps. 8-)

Of course you could be really clever, write a Windows script and have the script determine the drive letter of the flash drive. But we'll leave that for another day.

[Neodudeman]

Hey, thanks! Worked fantastic! But I just have a quick question... Why do you need the @ symbol before the echo off? I did a search of the home page, and the syntax for the command, it said, was just ECHO [ON|OFF], and didn't talk about the @. Could you explain it to me?

[Sidewinder]

The @ prevents the command from being echoed to the console. You can prefix any command with @, but @echo off is a catchall for every command following the echo statement or until echo is turned back on.

 8-)

[Neodudeman]

Oh neat! Thanks for the explaination  . But now I have another question.   Would that mean to turn the echo back on, I would need to do @echo on ?

I'm sorry that I have to ask, but currently my computer's in Best Buy, and now I have to use linux. Ugh.   Though it Does present an oppurtunity to learn some python!  

[Dilbert]

No. ECHO would be off, so the command "echo on" would not be shown anyway. It's only when the echo is already on that you need the @.

Best advice: Make a small .bat file and try it. That's how I made a good 15% of my batch discoveries.