Batch How To ...

Mimic While Loops

With the FOR command you can create loops very much like For and For Each loops available in "true" scripting langauges.
However, a recent question I received was if there is a While (or Until) equivalent in batch files.
Well... not exactly, but the following technique comes close:

:LoopStart
REM Do something
  •
  •
REM Break from the loop if a condition is met
IF ... GOTO LoopEnd
REM Iterate through the loop once more if the condition wasn't met
GOTO LoopStart
:LoopEnd

REM You're out of the loop now
  •
  •

This code can be simplified:

:LoopStart
REM Do something
  •
  •
REM Iterate through the loop once more if a condition isn't met
IF NOT ... GOTO LoopStart
REM Leave the loop if the condition was met

REM You're out of the loop now
  •
  •

These blocks of code are actually Do...Until loops.
Do...While requires the test of the condition to be done at the beginning of the block:

:LoopStart
REM Break from the loop if a condition is met
IF ... GOTO LoopEnd

REM Do something
  •
  •
REM Reiterate through the loop once more
GOTO LoopStart
:LoopEnd

REM You're out of the loop now
  •
  •

This isn't as readable as "true" scripting languages, but changing the label names might help:

:DoWhile
REM Break from the loop if a condition is met
IF ... GOTO EndDoWhile

REM Do something
  •
  •
REM Reiterate through the loop once more
GOTO DoWhile
:EndDoWhile

REM You're out of the loop now
  •
  •

Or for Do...Until loops:

:DoUntil
REM Do something
  •
  •
REM Iterate through the loop once more if a condition isn't met
IF NOT ... GOTO DoUntil
REM Leave the loop if the condition was met
:EndDoUntil

REM You're out of the loop now
  •
  •

In this last piece of code I used the :EndDoUntil label only to mark the end of the loop.
It is completely redundant as far as the batch code is concerned, no GOTO :EndDoUntil is used anywhere.