These functions wait for the user to enter an input string, terminated
by a press of the ENTER key. Then Fdate simply produces that same
input string (or in the case of GETU, that input string in all upper
case) as its output.
GET == get user input (case is unchanged from what was entered)
GETU == get user input (uppercase)
- If the /Q prompt-string parameter is specified, then the prompt string
is displayed, but a NEWLINE is not written to the screen before
waiting for the user's input.
As with Fdate's other forms of output, this output can be displayed,
redirected to a file, or (if your environment supports Fdate's /V
parameter) placed into an environment variable.
FILTERING OF INPUT -- A FEATURE THAT Fdate DOES NOT PROVIDE
This "get" function provides no edit mask for input -- Fdate will
accept anything. The situation is helped by the fact that Fdate also
provides a validate function (/Fv) which can be used to validate the
user input, so that one can:
1. use /Fget to get user input and place it in an environment
variable
2. use /Fv to validate the date in the Evar
3. use the rest of the batch file to process the user input
See examples: "Get user input" and FORATIM2.BAT
For a program that provides more sophisticated functions for getting
user input in batch files (type checking, edit masks, etc.), I
recommend Bob Stephan's shareware program GET, which is described
elsewhere in this documentation.