How does this work?

[vefatica]

I found an old BTM with this first line:

set z=nothing:rem& cscript "%~f0" //E:VBS //NOLOGO &GOTO:EOF

The rest is VB script.
It works. How? In particular, what happens when cscript.exe reads the first line?

 

[samintz]

When you are setting a value to a variable that is actually an object then you must follow some special syntax. The SET keyword lets VBScript know that you are setting your variable equal to an object. In addition to this, you also have to set the variable equal to nothing after you are finished with it.

And I'm guessing that the colon is a statement separator. So VBScript sees a SET z=nothing followed by a REMark.

TC sees 3 statements - set, cscript, and goto.

 

[vefatica]

I get the "set" part. Are you sure about the colon and that VBS understands REM?

 

[Joe Caverly]

I get the "set" part. Are you sure about the colon and that VBS understands REM?

echo %@script[vbscript,a=10:a=a+1:set fso=CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject"):set stdout=fso.GetStandardStream(1):stdout.WriteLine a:Rem This is a comment]

Joe

 

[vefatica]

echo %@script[vbscript,a=10:a=a+1:set fso=CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject"):set stdout=fso.GetStandardStream(1):stdout.WriteLine a:Rem This is a comment]

Joe

Got it. Thanks to both of you.