Batch file message box: Carriage return in message body

Question

I'm successfully showing a message box from a batch file using this method given by boflynn for a previous question.

I'm trying to insert a carriage return into the message box body text but all my attempts and combinations of quote marks and Char(13) have thus far failed.

With reference to the above linked answer, I'm looking for a messagbox that would put text on multiple lines, such as:

This will
be shown
in a popup

Is this possible?

Not VBA but this is closest dup so far - [display a 2 row message pop -up vba 6](http://stackoverflow.com/a/5005241/692942). The code is identical, but like I said it's VBA not VBScript. — user692942, Aug 08 '16 at 13:18
It's just string concatenation, the reason `Char(13)` didn't work is because the function is called `Chr()`, so `Chr(13)` would have worked. Incidentally the [built-in named constants](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh277t8e(v=vs.84).aspx) already cover the various scenarios so worth using them - `vbCr` is `Chr(13)`, `vbLf` is `Chr(10)`, `vbCrLf` is `Chr(13) & Chr(10)` and `vbNewLine` a Platform-specific newline character; whatever is appropriate for the platform. — user692942, Aug 08 '16 at 13:26
Lankymart, thanks for your input - if I had a penny for every time I've type Char instead of Chr..... — Smartbuild, Aug 08 '16 at 14:11

Ansgar Wiechers · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-08T12:22:12.967

3

VBScript has a builtin constant vbCr for the Carriage Return character. Concatenate your (sub)strings with that constant and display the message box with the result:

MsgBox "This will" & vbCr & "be shown" & vbCr & "in a popup"

To display multiline text from a batch file you need to pass each line as a separate argument

cscript MessageBox.vbs "This will" "be shown" "in a popup"

and concatenate the arguments

ReDim args(WScript.Arguments.Count-1)
For i = 0 To WScript.Arguments.Count-1
  args(i) = WScript.Arguments(i)
Next

MsgBox Join(args, vbCr)

edited Aug 08 '16 at 12:22

answered Aug 08 '16 at 12:18

Ansgar Wiechers

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Pls also suggest how to set a certain button like Yes or No highlighted in the Message Box with 2 buttons, and then auto press it (with Carriage Return?). – sambul35 Aug 08 '16 at 12:21
2

@sambul35 Please do some [legwork](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/sfw6660x) yourself. SO is not a place where other people write code tailored to your requirements. – Ansgar Wiechers Aug 08 '16 at 12:23
I'd rather use `vbCrLf` here as a carriage-return (CR) and line-feed (LF) sequence is the standard Windows end-of-line marker (although the OP asked for CR)... – aschipfl Aug 08 '16 at 12:27
2

@aschipfl If you want to take care of that it's best to use `vbNewLine` instead of hard-coding particular linebreak characters. – Ansgar Wiechers Aug 08 '16 at 12:34
Ah, yes, that's even better! – aschipfl Aug 08 '16 at 12:59
Good answer but pretty sure this has been covered before on [so]. – user692942 Aug 08 '16 at 13:13
Thankyou Ansgar, exactly what I was looking for. – Smartbuild Aug 08 '16 at 14:09

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 08 '16 at 13:42

You can try this sample example to call the MsgBox from a function :

@echo off
set "Msg=Hey !\nHere is a message !\nThis will\n be shown\n in popup\n with multi-lines !"
Rem 64=vbInformation, 48=vbExclamation, 16=vbCritical 32=vbQuestion
set Type=64 48 16 32
Set "Title=Example of MsgBox in batch with vbscript"
For %%a in (%Type%) Do Call:MsgBox "%Msg%" "%%a" "%Title%"
exit /b
::**********************************************************
:MsgBox <Msg> <Type> <Title>
echo MsgBox Replace("%~1","\n",vbCrLf),"%~2","%~3" > "%tmp%\%~n0.vbs"
Cscript /nologo "%tmp%\%~n0.vbs" & Del "%tmp%\%~n0.vbs"
exit /b
::**********************************************************

Batch file message box: Carriage return in message body

2 Answers2