Path: utzoo!attcan!telly!druid!darcy
From: darcy@druid.uucp (D'Arcy J.M. Cain)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: Getting rid of "syntax error" from .bat files - how to?
Message-ID: <1990Dec8.150147.1225@druid.uucp>
Date: 8 Dec 90 15:01:47 GMT
References: <9467@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: D'Arcy Cain Consulting, West Hill, Ontario
Lines: 27

In article <9467@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> Graham Brand writes:
>	if %1==param1
>syntax. It works fine except that if I don't pass any parameters, I
>get the above syntax error message. Is there any way to suppress this?

The problem is that with no parameter it evaluates to
    if ==param1
which is invalid.  To get around this simply do the test as follows:
    if %1x==param1x
The extra character on both sides prevents the syntax error without
affecting the comparison.

>In addition, is there any way of passing a string, the first character
>of which is a dash (-), as in -f? It doesn't seem to work with the
>above test.

Not sure what you mean.  The following works for me:
    if %1==-f echo -f
Or with the above change:
    if x%1==x-f echo -f

Can you give an example of the problem.
-- 
D'Arcy J.M. Cain (darcy@druid)     |
D'Arcy Cain Consulting             |   There's no government
West Hill, Ontario, Canada         |   like no government!
+1 416 281 6094                    |