Start /wait /b not exiting program when there is an error

Question

I have a batch file that will run several other file (lets call it procedure file) such as .bat,.exe,.py, etc...

if Not Exist JobStreamUnitTest_CreateTextPyt         


        

Answer 1

I have found some issues in start /WAIT /B any_program || exit %errorlevel%:

• #1 - %errorlevel% variable will be expanded at parse time. Thus your script never returns proper exit code. See EnableDelayedExpansion.
• #2 - || conditional command execution: unfortunately I can't document it properly, but all my attempts with it failed in relation to start command...

IMHO next code snippet (the only example) could work as expected:

if Not Exist JobStreamUnitTest_CreateTextBatch_4-27-2015.txt (
    start /B /WAIT C:\Users\blee2\Documents\UnitTest\CreateNewFile.bat
    SETLOCAL enabledelayedexpansion
    if !errorlevel! NEQ 0 exit !errorlevel!
    ENDLOCAL
    copy /y nul JobStreamUnitTest_CreateTextBatch_4-27-2015.txt
)

• #3 - a bug in the implementation of the start command.

start /WAIT /B doesn't work (the /wait argument is ignored):

==>start /WAIT /B wmic OS GET Caption & echo xxx
xxx

==>Caption
Microsoft Windows 8.1

There's a simple workaround (from SupeUser) as start /B /WAIT works:

==>start /B /WAIT wmic OS GET Caption & echo xxx
Caption
Microsoft Windows 8.1

xxx