Template for Yes/No Choice input in batch files

choice.bat

@ECHO OFF
:start
SET choice=
SET /p choice=Do something? [N]: 
IF NOT '%choice%'=='' SET choice=%choice:~0,1%
IF '%choice%'=='Y' GOTO yes
IF '%choice%'=='y' GOTO yes
IF '%choice%'=='N' GOTO no
IF '%choice%'=='n' GOTO no
IF '%choice%'=='' GOTO no
ECHO "%choice%" is not valid
ECHO.
GOTO start

:no
ECHO Do all of the no things here!
PAUSE
EXIT

:yes
ECHO Do all of the yes things here!
PAUSE
EXIT

Sir, is there any way that automatically takes yes if the user does nothing?

Yes you can. Using his example, on line 10, just change no to yes and that should do it.

Changing line 10 from no to yes will not automatically select yes if no input is provided. IF '%choice%'=='' GOTO yes would just skip to the :yes block instead of the no block if Enter was pressed without providing input. Set /p will wait forever for input.

Is there any reason you'd need this? It's rather dated. I would recommend using PowerShell as a much more modern and capable way of scripting.

Changing line 10 from no to yes will not automatically select yes if no input is provided. IF '%choice%'=='' GOTO yes would just skip to the :yes block instead of the no block if Enter was pressed without providing input. Set /p will wait forever for input.

Yes, you are correct. I misread that. I was thinking he meant if they just hit "Enter" without putting in a selection, it would just take them to the "yes" block.

Minor fixes this:

IF '%choice%'=='Y' GOTO yes
IF '%choice%'=='y' GOTO yes

Replace with this:
IF /i '%choice%'=='Y' GOTO yes
It supports uppercase and lowercase text input

Minor fixes this:

IF '%choice%'=='Y' GOTO yes
IF '%choice%'=='y' GOTO yes

Replace with this: IF /i '%choice%'=='Y' GOTO yes It supports uppercase and lowercase text input

This may depend on OS (???) because on my machine, this input is case-sensitive (meaning that you need both the upper- and lowercase options or else one will be read as an invalid input). I'm on Windows 10, running in console.

@jcefoli

I would recommend using PowerShell as a much more modern and capable way of scripting

Could you give a hint, how one would write an equal batch file for PowerShell? Would that file use the same extension *.bat?
Thanks!

I would recommend using PowerShell as a much more modern and capable way of scripting

Could you give a hint, how one would write an equal batch file for PowerShell? Would that file use the same extension *.bat? Thanks!

PowerShell and Batch are two different things. Batch files are handled by cmd.exe and you can double click them to run a string of commands. They are very old and it's not as good as linux bash or PowerShell

PowerShell scripts have the .ps1 extension. You cannot just click them like a batch file, and you must call them from the powershell console.

There are much more elegant ways to create a menu in Powershell, but porting the code above over to parity looks like so:

$choice = ""
while ($choice.ToUpper() -ne "Y" -and $choice.ToUpper() -ne "N") {
    $choice = Read-Host "Do Something (Y/N)"

    if ($choice.ToUpper() -eq "Y") {
        Write-Host "You chose yes"
    } elseif ($choice.ToUpper() -eq "N") {
        Write-Host "You chose no"
    } else {
        Write-Host "$choice is not valid"
    }
}

Thank you so much for your help.