CMD

In DOS, OS/2, and Windows, a batch file is a type of script file, a text file containing a series of commands to be executed by the command line interpreter. A batch file may contain any command the interpreter accepts interactively at the command prompt. A batch file may also have constructs (If, For, Goto and various labels) that enable conditional branching and looping within the batch file. Similar to Job Control Language (JCL) and other systems on mainframe and minicomputer systems, batch files were added to ease the work required for certain regular tasks by allowing the user to set up a script to automate them. When a batch file is run, the shell program (usually COMMAND.COM or cmd.exe) reads the file and executes its commands, normally line-by-line. Unix-like operating systems (such as Linux) have a similar, but more flexible, type of file called a shell script. The filename extension .bat is used in DOS and Windows. Windows NT and OS/2 also added .cmd. Batch files for other environments may have different extensions, e.g. .btm in 4DOS, 4OS2 and 4NT related shells. There have been changes to the detailed handling of batch files; some of the detail in this article is applicable to all batch files, while other details apply only to certain versions.