Windows XP in a Nutshell, Second Edition

Name

goto

Synopsis

Branch to a labeled line in a batch program.

Syntax

goto label

...

:label

GOTO :EOF

Description

goto is typically used with the if statement to branch to a particular part of a batch file, depending on the result of the condition or user response.

Label, any string of text (no spaces) following a colon, marks the beginning of a section of a batch file and represents a target for the goto command. Only the first eight characters of label are used; the labels pneumonia and pneumonic are therefore equivalent. If you type goto :eof (note the colon, not normally used here), it will skip to the end of the batch file (EOF=end of file).

If your batch program doesn’t contain the label you specify after goto, the batch program stops and displays the message “Label not found.” However, you can specify labels that don’t appear in goto commands.

Examples

Format a floppy disk in drive a: and display an appropriate message of success or failure:

@echo off
format a:
if not errorlevel 1 goto skip
echo An error occurred during formatting.
exit
:skip
echo Successfully formatted the disk in drive a!

See Also

“if”