Question

What is the simplest and/or most readable method to IF with AND in a CMD shell? In pseudo code:

IF EXIST file1 AND file2:
   then do stuff
ELSE: 
   do something else

this Q has to be somewhere on SO but my search-fu isn’t working for this one. sorry

Answer 1

Assuming you are talking about DOS/Windows batch files, I think you want something like this:

SET do_stuff=false
IF EXIST file1 IF EXIST file2 SET do_stuff=true
IF "%do_stuff%"=="true" (
    REM do stuff
) ELSE (
    REM do something else
)

The source of the ugliness is that DOS batch file if statements do not have and and or operators, so you have to either write nested if statements (which can lead to duplicated code in the then and else clauses), or capture the expression result into a variable and then do an if statement on its value (lots more lines). I favor the second approach to avoid duplication of code. Perhaps this is all a security feature. 🙂

I found some good examples here and here (SO, even). But you can also just use the help system built into the shell (help if or if /? IIRC).