In this era of advanced programming languages, the simplicity, universality, and efficiency of Batch scripting holds undeniable value. A book about bat files? Why? Whether you’re maintaining legacy systems or seeking to understand the foundations of command line automation, The Book of Batch Scripting shows you how to become proficient with this tool included in every version of Windows. Batch isn’t new, and the lack of some functionality is mystifying by today’s standards, but it’s still an immensely useful language that isn’t going away anytime soon, especially since it’s being packaged with the operating system installed on every Windows computer. While Batch is one scripting language among many, there are still many lines of Batch code being supported by large and small companies, and some tasks truly lend themselves to bat files more than any other language. And as for that lacking functionality—booleans, arrays, hash tables, stacks, even object-oriented design, and more—I’ll show you how to build it yourselves by the end of this book. But the most immediate reason for me personally to write a book about Batch scripting is that after two decades of writing bat files for personal and professional use, I believe that I’ve gotten to a place where I’ve learned enough about the topic to share my experiences and insights with a larger community.