How to enter multiple line of code in CMD from VBA? - excel

Question

I want to open a cmd.exe and then execute a few lines of code.
I searched the web for some examples.
Code I tried modifying:
strToPrint = "Hello World!"
Shell "cmd.exe /K echo " & strToPrint, vbNormalFocus
I found How to write message to command window from VBA?
I tried multiple lines of coding, but the lines are executed in different command windows:
Sub CMD_VBA_Script()
Shell "cmd.exe /K echo Hello World!", vbNormalFocus
Shell "cmd.exe /K color 0a", vbNormalFocus
End Sub
I understand when I call the Shell two times, that it will execute two times.
My goal is to call the following script from VBA:
#echo off
title Matrix
color 0a
mode 1000
:a
echo %random%%random%
goto a
How can I execute multiple lines of code from VBA in command prompt?

Answer 1

MyFile = "C:\cmdcode.bat"
fnum = FreeFile()
Open MyFile For Output As #fnum
Print #fnum, "#echo off"
Print #fnum, "title Matrix"
Print #fnum, "color 0a"
Print #fnum, "mode 1000"
Print #fnum, ""
Print #fnum, ":a"
Print #fnum, "echo %random%%random%"
Print #fnum, "goto a"
Close #fnum
' Run bat-file:
Shell MyFile, vbNormalFocus
' optional, remove bat-file:
Kill "C:\cmdcode.bat"
So in short. You need to create a bat-file that you run.
If you don't need the bat-file after it's done you can delete it with Kill

Answer 2

You can write something like this -
Call Shell("cmd.exe /c "cd C:\Users\username\local\temp\" & " && temp.vbs" & " && mkdir newfolder")
This executes 3 lines of command:
Change directory
Execute a vbs file
Make a new folder

Answer 3

It looks like you want to execute a Command Prompt Batch file - batches are stateful, so simply executing each line separately is not going to have the same effect as executing the batch as a whole.
Two other alternative approaches involve faking batch execution by instructing an interactive instance of cmd.exe to execute commands as-they're-entered by some automated process: either sending window messages, or piping into the cmd process' stdin stream. I do not recommend either of these approaches because of their inherent flakiness (i.e. dependency on undocumented behavior)
So the best approach would be to just execute a batch file as it's intended - you would need to write the batch to a temporary file first, and then execute it:
Using the code from here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/195763
Dim tempFileName As String
tempFileName = CreateTempFile("SomeBatch.cmd")
WriteToBatchFile( tempFileName ) ' you will have to write to the temp batch file yourself here
Shell "cmd.exe /c """ & tempFileName & """", vbHide, True ' Run the batch file, then cmd.exe will terminate. The Shell function will block until cmd is closed
Kill tempFile ' delete the temp batch file

Answer 4

Use "cmd.exe /K" option, and '&' to connect multiple commands.
In C:\Users\%USERNAME%, create test.bat with two simple commands:
echo %PATH%
dir
Here is the complete sample:
Sub Demo_Multi_Commands()
Cmd1 = "cd " & Environ("USERPROFILE")
Cmd2 = "test.bat"
Connector = " & "
Commands = "cmd.exe /K " & Cmd1 & Connector & Cmd2 & Connector & "systeminfo"
Debug.Print Commands
pid = Shell(Commands, vbNormalFocus)
End Sub
Environment: Windows 10 Enterprise, VBA 7.1