Enumerating Group Membership

You can provide input to scripts in many ways. Commonly used approaches include using script arguments that you specify at runtime, manually editing variables in the script on each run, and using an input file. The lesser-known approaches include using the Choice command, which works well when users need to choose an option from a small static set of options, and using the Set /p command, which lets users enter any information they want.

For EnumGroups.bat, I used the Choice command to handle the input for the file types. The Choice command was ideal because this set of options consists of only three static items. The Choice command accepts only those options you specify; any other option will cause the script to stop. The script won't continue until the user enters a valid choice.

Although the Choice command is a good fit for capturing the file type, it wouldn't work for capturing the group name or domain name because many possible names exist and they can change frequently. The Set /p command works well for these two inputs. However, the Set /p command doesn't test whether the user's input is valid, so EnumGroups.bat contains some error-handling code to intercept bad input. . . .