{"id":85940,"date":"2004-08-31T12:41:28","date_gmt":"2004-08-31T20:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/?p=85940"},"modified":"2019-06-03T12:43:22","modified_gmt":"2019-06-03T20:43:22","slug":"how-can-i-prompt-a-user-for-input","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/how-can-i-prompt-a-user-for-input\/","title":{"rendered":"How Can I Prompt a User for Input?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Hey, \n

Hey, Scripting Guy! I need my script to prompt users to enter some information, like the name of the file they want to create. How do I do that?

— RW, Williamsport, PA<\/P>Spacer\"Hey,\"Script<\/A> \n

Hey, BN. The simplest – and most foolproof – way to do this is to use an InputBox; when you do that users will be presented with a graphical dialog box similar to this:<\/P>\n

\"Hey,<\/P>\n

Displaying the dialog box is easy; you simply call the InputBox function, passing that function two parameters:<\/P>\n\n<\/THEAD>\n\n\n\n
\n

The message to be displayed.<\/B><\/P><\/TD>\n

\n

In this example, the message is Please enter a name for your new file:<\/I>.<\/P><\/TD><\/TR>\n

\n

The caption for the dialog box.<\/B><\/P><\/TD>\n

\n

In this example, the caption is Create File<\/I>.<\/P><\/TD><\/TR><\/TBODY><\/TABLE>\n

<\/DIV>\n

The code itself looks something like this:<\/P>

strAnswer = InputBox(“Please enter a name for your new file:”, _\n    “Create File”)\n<\/PRE>\n
Note that the variable strAnswer will be used to store whatever the user types into the dialog box.<\/P>\n
So far so good. Now, how do you figure out what file name the user typed in? That\u2019s easy; like we said, the value the user enters is automatically stored in the variable strAnswer. Thus:<\/P>
strAnswer = InputBox(“Please enter a name for your new file:”, _\n    “Create File”)\nWscript.Echo strAnswer\n<\/PRE>\n
There\u2019s only one complication here. As you can see, the dialog box has both an OK button and a Cancel button. The idea is that the user types in a file name and then clicks OK. But what happens if the user clicks Cancel? Theoretically, that means that the user doesn\u2019t want to create a file after all; because of that, the script should either terminate or move on to some other task. <\/P>\n
Fortunately, this a case where theory can easily be put into practice. Any time a user clicks the Cancel button, strAnswer is set to an empty string (e.g., strAnswer = \u201c\u201d). To determine whether the user clicked Cancel (or, alternatively, clicked OK without entering a file name), all we have to do is check to see if strAnswer equals an empty string. This modified script checks the value of strAnswer; if strAnswer is empty the script terminates (using Wscript.Quit). Otherwise, the script echoes the value the user typed into the dialog box:<\/P>
strAnswer = InputBox(“Please enter a name for your new file:”, _\n    “Create File”)\nIf strAnswer = “” Then\n    Wscript.Quit\nElse\n    Wscript.Echo strAnswer\nEnd If\n<\/PRE>\n
Here\u2019s a variation which places the InputBox in a loop. If the user clicks Cancel, the script reminds the user to enter a file name, and then displays the InputBox again. As soon as the user enters a file name and clicks OK, the script displays the value entered and then exits the loop (Exit Do):<\/P>
Do While X = 0\n    strAnswer = InputBox _\n        (“Please enter a name for your new file:”,”Create File”)\n    If strAnswer = “” Then\n        Wscript.Echo “You must enter a file name.”\n    Else\n        Wscript.Echo strAnswer\n        Exit Do\n    End If\nLoop\n<\/PRE>\n
For more information about the Input function, see the VBScript documentation<\/A> on MSDN.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hey, Scripting Guy! I need my script to prompt users to enter some information, like the name of the file they want to create. How do I do that?— RW, Williamsport, PA Hey, BN. The simplest – and most foolproof – way to do this is to use an InputBox; when you do that users […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":596,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[56,3,45],"class_list":["post-85940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-guest-blogger","tag-scripting-guy","tag-windows-powershell"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"
Hey, Scripting Guy! I need my script to prompt users to enter some information, like the name of the file they want to create. How do I do that?— RW, Williamsport, PA Hey, BN. The simplest – and most foolproof – way to do this is to use an InputBox; when you do that users […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}