Hello, help on two questions will be highly appreciated. Question 1: How to check the result of last DOS command in a .bat file ? For example, in miketex I use @echo off echo looking for latex package %1 initexmf --find-latex-input %1.sty How can I proceed the following command initexmf --update-fndb only when the search of the last command returns no result ? In unix, to know the result of last command, I can direct the output by "> /dev/null" then check "$status", but how to do the same thing in DOS ? Question 2: I use cgywin so "make" works very well for my PC with OS win2k. But I noticed sth strange: If I use "ps2pdf $(File).ps" directly from DOS commandline input, then the result is perfect. But if I put the above command on a Makefile,for example: pf: (tab) ps2pdf $(File).ps Then my PC refused to do the task, and I got error message like: make: *** [pf] Error 128 The dinamic link library cygz.dll could not be found in the specified path .... I search my PC and found no cygz.dll file at all. Can someone tell me why the same command works for commandline input but does not work in a Makefile? (both commands were issued from the same DOS window) Thanks again.

1) The DOS equivalent of $status is errorlevel. It is returned as a number and used in a very strange way. This will only work if your program returns a non zero value. See if /? This varies depending on whether you are using NT or Win9x or DOS6.x 2) The problem is $(File). Make looks for a symbol File in the makefile. Try using $$ in place of $.

Thanks to CUP' reply. The symbol looks like a very fast CPU :) The ERRORLEVEL works. For the second question, actually in commandline input I substitued a true file name for $(File), while in Makefile I assigned a value to the variable named File. It is kind of strange that the same way worked in the unix env, while not work for cygwin make. I am not sure if "cygwin make" has a bug though. Those commands like ps2pdf, dvips etc have different options for different OS. But I did not think I use the options wrong.

Makefiles can be a pain sometimes. It is the only programming system I use where the starting point is in the middle. I've never used cygwin so I don't know the root cause of the problem. Have you tried -DFile=xxx from the make command line? If that works then the definition of File is missing. You'll need to add in a File= somewhere.

I solved the second problem. (Pose here in case someone may have the same problem.) Actually the cygwin I installed should be upgraded to higher version to agree with the version of my Miktex. After upgrading, I have the required cygz.dll, so no more problems exist for the makefile.