Month: April 2019

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15 Useful Batch files programming recipes

In the Batchography book, I cover basic to advanced Batch files programming topics. Since the book was published in 2016, I kept blogging about Batch programming language.

Here’s a collection of some useful recipes:

  1. Check if the script is running as an Administrator
  2. String substitution
  3. Number counting
  4. Batch files and Unicode
  5. Read from a text file, one line at a time
  6. Switch/case in Batch files
  7. Auto reinterpret/compile changed files
  8. Reading from a file
  9. Tokenizing command output
  10. Polyglot: Python and Batch files
  11. Polyglot: Batch file + self compiling C++
  12. Embedding binaries inside Batch files
  13. Interactive Batch files
  14. Writing a game – The Hangman
  15. Batchography: Parsing INI files from a Batch file

 

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batchography-good-resDo you want to master Batch Files programming? Look no further, the Batchography is the right book for you.

Available in print or e-book editions from Amazon.

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Can you solve this puzzle?

I got this silly puzzle via chain mail:

Can you solve it?

Maybe you will be able to, but don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get it right.

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When it comes to keyboards, I am super picky!

When I got my first computer, I got attached to its keyboard (The Honeywell 101WN model). In fact, I kept the keyboard until I bought a new computer with no PS/2 ports on it.

It was a sad moment when I realized that I have to move on and find a new keyboard.

While I could have bought a PS/2 adapter, I needed the “Windows” key which is available on newer keyboards.

I think a big majority of programmers love their keyboards and their layout, just like me.

I am very picky when it comes to keyboards. If I don’t like the keyboard, I might not like the whole laptop for instance.

It took me a while to get used to the old MacBook Pro’s keyboards but just after I started liking their keyboards, Apple changed the mechanism to the butterfly mechanism and made the keyboards repulsing in my opinion. I won’t buy a new MacBook because of their keyboards. The same goes for Microsoft Surface laptops. I did not like their toy-like keyboards and therefore won’t buy, endorse or use a Microsoft Surface book or laptop . The most pleasant keyboards so far are the IBM / Lenovo keyboards. That’s why all of my PC laptops are a Lenovo X or T series.

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Batchography: Detect Windows Language

To detect the Windows Operating system language, it is enough to query the registry. We use the “reg query” command and then parse the output.

@echo off

setlocal

:: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/office/developer/speech-technologies/hh361638(v=office.14)

for /F "usebackq tokens=3" %%a IN (`reg query "hklm\system\controlset001\control\nls\language" /v Installlanguage`) DO (
  set lang_id=%%a
)
:: 0409 English ; 0407 German ; 040C French ; 0C0A Spanish

if "%lang_id%"=="0409" (
  echo English detected
) else if "%lang_id%" == "040C" (
  echo French detected
) else (
  echo Note: Unknown language ID %lang_id%!
)

echo LangID=%lang_id%

You can learn about advanced Batch scripting techniques in the Batchography book.
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batchography-good-resDo you want to master Batch Files programming? Look no further, the Batchography is the best book on the topic and the most up to date!

Available in print or e-book editions from Amazon.

 


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