Windows copy command return codes? - windows

Question

I would like to test for the success/failure of a copy in a batch file, but I can't find any documentation on what if any errorlevel codes are returned. For example
copy x y
if %errorlevel%. equ 1. (
echo Copy x y failed due to ...
exit /B
) else (
if %errorlevel% equ 2. (
echo Copy x y failed due to ...
exit /B
)
... etc ...
)

Answer 1

I'd opt for xcopy in this case since the error levels are documented (see xcopy documentation, paraphrased below):
Exit code Description
========= ===========
0 Files were copied without error.
1 No files were found to copy.
2 The user pressed CTRL+C to terminate xcopy.
4 Initialization error occurred. There is not
enough memory or disk space, or you entered
an invalid drive name or invalid syntax on
the command line.
5 Disk write error occurred.
In any case, xcopy is a far more powerful solution. The equivalent documentation for copy does not document the error levels.
As an aside, you may want to rethink your use of the %errorlevel% variable. It has unexpected results, at least in some versions of Windows, if someone has explicitly done something silly like:
set errorlevel=22
In those cases, the actual variable will be used rather than grabbing the actual error level. The "normal" way of doing this is (in decreasing order since errorlevel is a "greater than or equal to" check):
if errorlevel 2 (
echo Copy x y failed due to reason 2
exit /B
)
if errorlevel 1 (
echo Copy x y failed due to reason 1
exit /B
)
In addition, if you are running Win7 or Win Server 2008 or later, you should look into Robocopy, which is now the preferred mass-copy solution.

Answer 2

It might also be worth pointing out that xcopy doesn't always return the error code you expect.
For example when trying to copy multiple files with a wildcard but there are no files to copy you expect a return error code of 1 ("No files were found to copy"), but it actually returns 0 ("Files were copied without error")
C:\Users\wilson>mkdir bla
C:\Users\wilson>mkdir blert
C:\Users\wilson>xcopy bla\* blert\
0 File(s) copied
C:\Users\wilson>echo %ERRORLEVEL%
0

Answer 3

I believe Copy only returns 0 for success or 1 for failure.
XCopy has documented return codes:
0 = Files were copied without error.
1 = No files were found to copy.
2 = The user pressed CTRL+C to terminate xcopy.
4 = Initialization error occurred. There is not enough memory or disk space, or you entered an invalid drive name or invalid syntax on the command line.
5 = Disk write error occurred.

Answer 4

There is also one point I would like to emphasize: xcopy as well as robocopy can only copy files, but they can't rename them.
While looking at the original situation (copy x y, which looks like a rename to me), I have the impression that the copy command still is the only one suitable for this purpose.

Answer 5

Error# Description
0 No error
1 Not owner
2 No such file or directory
3 Interrupted system call
4 I/O error
5 Bad file number
6 No more processes
7 Not enough core memory
8 Permission denied
9 Bad address
10 File exists
11 No such device
12 Not a directory
13 Is a directory
14 File table overflow
15 Too many open files
16 File too large
17 No space left on device
18 Directory not empty
999 Unmapped error (ABL default)