Question

Is there a way to write an IF OR IF conditional statement in a windows batch-file?

For example:

IF [%var%] == [1] OR IF [%var%] == [2] ECHO TRUE

Answer 1

The zmbq solution is good, but cannot be used in all situations, such as inside a block of code like a FOR DO(…) loop.

An alternative is to use an indicator variable. Initialize it to be undefined, and then define it only if any one of the OR conditions is true. Then use IF DEFINED as a final test – no need to use delayed expansion.

FOR ..... DO (
  set "TRUE="
  IF cond1 set TRUE=1
  IF cond2 set TRUE=1
  IF defined TRUE (
    ...
  ) else (
    ...
  )
)

You could add the ELSE IF logic that arasmussen uses on the grounds that it might perform a wee bit faster if the 1st condition is true, but I never bother.

Addendum – This is a duplicate question with nearly identical answers to Using an OR in an IF statement WinXP Batch Script

Final addendum – I almost forgot my favorite technique to test if a variable is any one of a list of case insensitive values. Initialize a test variable containing a delimitted list of acceptable values, and then use search and replace to test if your variable is within the list. This is very fast and uses minimal code for an arbitrarily long list. It does require delayed expansion (or else the CALL %%VAR%% trick). Also the test is CASE INSENSITIVE.

set "TEST=;val1;val2;val3;val4;val5;"
if "!TEST:;%VAR%;=!" neq "!TEST!" (echo true) else (echo false)

The above can fail if VAR contains =, so the test is not fool-proof.

If doing the test within a block where delayed expansion is needed to access current value of VAR then

for ... do (
  set "TEST=;val1;val2;val3;val4;val5;"
  for /f %%A in (";!VAR!;") do if "!TEST:%%A=!" neq "!TEST!" (echo true) else (echo false)
)

FOR options like "delims=" might be needed depending on expected values within VAR

The above strategy can be made reliable even with = in VAR by adding a bit more code.

set "TEST=;val1;val2;val3;val4;val5;"
if "!TEST:;%VAR%;=!" neq "!TEST!" if "!TEST:;%VAR%;=;%VAR%;"=="!TEST!" echo true

But now we have lost the ability of providing an ELSE clause unless we add an indicator variable. The code has begun to look a bit "ugly", but I think it is the best performing reliable method for testing if VAR is any one of an arbitrary number of case-insensitive options.

Finally there is a simpler version that I think is slightly slower because it must perform one IF for each value. Aacini provided this solution in a comment to the accepted answer in the before mentioned link

for %%A in ("val1" "val2" "val3" "val4" "val5") do if "%VAR%"==%%A echo true

The list of values cannot include the * or ? characters, and the values and %VAR% should not contain quotes. Quotes lead to problems if the %VAR% also contains spaces or special characters like ^, & etc. One other limitation with this solution is it does not provide the option for an ELSE clause unless you add an indicator variable. Advantages are it can be case sensitive or insensitive depending on presence or absence of IF /I option.