How to use && within a doskey?

Question

I know I can run two commands back-to-back in the command line:

git add -u && git commit --amend --no-edit

I also have aliases setup using doskey

doskey a=git add $*

But how can I combine multiple commands in a single doskey alias?

doskey amend=git add -u && git commit --amend --no-edit

This fails by setting the doskey to the first command doskey amend=git add -u and then proceeds to immediately execute git commit --amend --no-edit at runtime instead of saving the composite command to the doskey alias.

I also tried quoting the whole thing:

doskey amend="git add -u && git commit --amend --no-edit"

But this fails too because it interprets the quotes literally:

'"git add -u && git commit --amend --no-edit"' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

Answer 1

The problem is that && denotes the end of the doskey command and the second git command is executed in-line after it.

I have tried other syntax combinations, but none of them allows && to be parsed after the doskey expansion, apart from:

doskey amend=cmd /c "git add -u && git commit --amend --no-edit"

This launches a new shell, which is inefficient. A better solution might be to put both commands into a batch file (eg amend.cmd) and assign the macro to this:

doskey amend=amend.cmd

Answer 2

This was the first result in the google but I found other similar question with nice answers.

1- escape the ampersand character doskey foo=bar ^& baz

2- use doskey's own command seperator doskey foo=bar $T baz

source

This is cleaner and does not open extra command windows.

Answer 3

You can chain commands within an individual DOSKEY, using as Ali mentions using the $T or ^& separators, however you cannot then chain the doskey command in your terminal. An example is in order

This works

doskey ls=dir $T echo YAY A FOLDER

See the output:

C:\tmp>ls
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is ABCD-1234

 Directory of C:\tmp

23/07/2020  18:02    <DIR>          .
23/07/2020  18:02    <DIR>          ..
C:\tmp>YAY A FOLDER
C:\tmp>

This doesn't

C:\tmp>ls && echo YAY ANOTHER ECHO!!
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is ABCD-1234

 Directory of C:\tmp

23/07/2020  18:02    <DIR>          .
23/07/2020  18:02    <DIR>          ..
C:\tmp>YAY A FOLDER
C:\tmp>

BOO there's no YAY ANOTHER ECHO!!

A better solution

Use batch files in a folder and set your PATH

1. Put dir && echo YAY A FOLDER in a file C:\batch\ls.bat
2. Set path=%PATH%;C:\batch
3. Run ls && echo YAY ANOTHER ECHO!!
4. Admire the lovely output

_

C:\tmp>ls && echo YAY ANOTHER ECHO!!
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is ABCD-1234

 Directory of C:\tmp

23/07/2020  18:02    <DIR>          .
23/07/2020  18:02    <DIR>          ..
YAY A FOLDER
YAY ANOTHER ECHO!!

C:\tmp>

PS - for step 2 above better to permanently set your PATH environment variable.

Answer 4

Escape & characters using ^ as follows:

DOSKEY amend=git add -u ^&^& git commit --amend --no-edit

See: https://stackoverflow.com/a/47528395/2047385