Related Resources from the NT/2K/XP/K3 Command Library

Go straight to !GuardNotes. (updated 2004-07-13)

Description

Begins localization of environment changes in a batch file.
Environment changes made after SETLOCAL has been issued are local to the batch file. ENDLOCAL must be issued to restore the previous settings.  When the end of a batch script is reached, an implied ENDLOCAL is executed for any outstanding SETLOCAL commands issued by that batch script.
 

Syntax

Parameters and Switches

Examples, Notes and Instructions

If Command Extensions are enabled SETLOCAL changes as follows:

SETLOCAL batch command now accepts an optional argument, which can be either ENABLEEXTENSIONS or DISABLEEXTENSIONS. This will enable or disable the Command process extensions until the matching ENDLOCAL command, regardless of their setting prior to the SETLOCAL command.

SETLOCAL batch command now accepts optional arguments:
ENABLEEXTENSIONS / DISABLEEXTENSIONS
enable or disable command processor extensions. See CMD /? for details.
ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION / DISABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
enable or disable delayed environment variable expansion. See SET /? for details.
These modifications last until the matching ENDLOCAL command, regardless of their setting prior to the SETLOCAL command.

The SETLOCAL command will set the ERRORLEVEL value if given an argument. It will be zero if one of the two valid arguments is given and one otherwise. You can use this in batch scripts to determine if the extensions are available, using the following technique:

VERIFY OTHER 2>nul
SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS
IF ERRORLEVEL 1 echo Unable to enable extensions

This works because on old versions of CMD.EXE, SETLOCAL does NOT set the ERRORLEVEL value. The VERIFY command with a bad argument initializes the ERRORLEVEL value to a non-zero value.

GuardNotes

Things that are different (by design, by accident or otherwise)

None documented (yet).