How to automatically open and close edlin editor using dos command in a batch file?

Q closes edlin without save, E - with save.
You can use the ; between multiple commands to execute all commands at once.

But I think it's better to look for something smarter than edlin... ;)

Sorry I think you did not get what I want actually.
I want to open the editor automatically using a DOS command in a batch file and again close it automatically without using the file menu exit command and then go to the next command in the batch file for execution.
For e.g my batch file is a.bat and in this I have the following commands

echo "How are you?
edit
dir /s

So here above the editor will open with the "edit" command but it is not closing automatically....!

Hope you understand my problem.

Regards,
Pranjal

edit or edlin?

Put your key sequence into a file and then invoke edlin such way:

edlin < filewithcommands.txt

It should redirect file contents to the edlin and do your job closing at the end.

Still it is not solving my purpose.
What I want actually is that my program should use short names of dos instead of long names with spaces in between for e.g if my directory name is "HCMG Source" then if I do CD "HCMG Source" and then just open editor with edit command and close then after that it shows me the directory name as C:\HCMGSO~1> and I want this short name to be used in my further commands instead of the log name "HCMG Source".

Can anyone tell me a solution to this?

Regards,
Pranjal

Is this a quirk of DOS ? How very interesting.

1) create a file as follows:

   a) enter the following command in DOS

       COPY CON qy.txt

   b) enter a letter 'q' as in the following:

       q

   c) then, enter a letter 'y' as in the following:

       y

   d) now for the tircky bit... hold down the CTRL key and type a 'z' while doing so as in the following:

       ^Z

   e) finally, press the ENTER (or carriage return) key

   you will see the familiar "1 file(s) copied." message


2) Now enter the following command to shorten your prompt:

   EDLIN qy.txt<qy.txt>nul

See the attached image file for an example:

All,

This is because edit.com and edlin.exe are MS-DOS, not Windows, executables. Of course, DOS does not support long filenames, so the DOS emulator in Windows sets the current directory to its short path before executing the DOS program. The short answer is that there is no workaround for this because you are running MS-DOS executables, not Windows executables. (Evidence for this is that edit.com and edlin.exe are not present in 64-bit Windows versions, because 64-bit Windows has dropped MS-DOS emulation.)

The solution is to use Windows programs, not MS-DOS programs.

Bill

If you are not perfectly sure you MUST use edlin then look for something smarter as I wrote in my first comment.

Here's another method to create the file: qy.txt:

   ECHO q >qy.txt
   ECHO y >>qy.txt

Now enter the following command:

   EDLIN NUL <qy.txt >NUL

Here's another method however, it uses DEBUG instead of EDLIN:

   ECHO q | DEBUG >NUL


As you can see, there's no need to use a file.




   

Finally, going back to your original question of using Edlin, there's no need to actually 'run' the transient part of Edlin as you can just as well enter the following command:

   EDLIN /? >NUL

No idea where this is all going ... but to retaint the full path in the current directory name after running edit fro whatever reason:

set pwd=%cd%
edit whatever.txt
cd %pwd%

Steve

Sorry now I understand it is the other way around.... well you have a lot of ways of doing it using old "dos" utils or you can do it using native for command:

for %%a in ("%cd%") do cd %%~sa

Steve

dragon-it

I think the asker wants to know how he could start Edlin or Edit and then exit immediately. The effect of running either of these legacy applications in XP, 2K and NT causes the system prompt to revert to SFN format. My interpretation is that he wants more command line room.

However, there's also a chance he might want to force say, Edit to to view filenames in 8.3 format when in the Open, Save or Save As dialog boxes - in which case there is the '/S' command line option which forces Edit to use SFN format.

By the way, your use of pwd=%cd% could have been written as:

   PUSHD %CD
   :
   POPD

Furthermore, in your last post, %%~a merely returns the value of %CD% which could have been gotten with the following stand-alone command:

   CD

It'll be interesting to see which way this question swings....

pranjal_ds

Just in case you didn't know, you can start DOS's Edit with the '/S' command line option like this:

   EDIT /S

The '/S' command lline option forces Edit to use short filenames (SFN) format when displaying filenames in the Open, Save or Save As dialog boxes.

I used %%~sa which got the short path for of the variable, I.e. the way to get the path changed into 8.3 format without using a DOS legacy app which might not be present on a newer OS (or behaviour may be diferent).

Not entirely clear what is wanted either mind.. but if you do want to just change to 8.3 dir format would suggest using native windows command rather than side effect of legacy app.

Steve

dragon-it

What native windows command are you referring to?

By the way, here's another trick:

   CD <LFN path>
   COMMAND

The FOR command and %%a~s in my example.

dragon-it

afaik, %%~s only applies to the path - not the filename itself.

Hi toto,

I used your solution of EDIT /? > NUL  and it has solved my problem.
Thanks a lot for other solutions also.

Regards,
Pranjal