CMD Script Errorlevel Misbehavior with IF statement

Question

Expected outcome of the following script: PERMPING if user presses P, or PINGLOOP if user presses T. However, no matter what the user presses, the script echos both. Any idea what gives?

CHOICE /C:PT /N /M "Ping permanently (P) or temporarily (T) (%pingTimes% times)?"
echo %ERRORLEVEL%
IF ERRORLEVEL 1 ECHO PERMPING
IF ERRORLEVEL 2 ECHO PINGLOOP

Answer 1

I suspect you are not acurately reporting the results of your code. The code you have posted should print both if P is pressed, and only print PINGLOOP if T is pressed. The behavior is due to how the IF ERRORLEVEL statement works, as is explained by the help. To get help on any command, simply type HELP commandName or commandName /? from a command prompt. In your case, you could use IF /? to see the following

Performs conditional processing in batch programs.

IF [NOT] ERRORLEVEL number command
...
  ERRORLEVEL number Specifies a true condition if the last program run
                    returned an exit code equal to or greater than the number
                    specified.
...

You have 2 choices to make your code work:

Test the conditions in decreasing numerical order and use the ELSE clause

CHOICE /C:PT /N /M "Ping permanently (P) or temporarily (T) (%pingTimes% times)?"
echo %ERRORLEVEL%
IF ERRORLEVEL 2 (
  ECHO PINGLOOP
) ELSE IF ERRORLEVEL 1 (
  ECHO PERMPING
)

or use IF %ERRORLEVEL%==N

CHOICE /C:PT /N /M "Ping permanently (P) or temporarily (T) (%pingTimes% times)?"
echo %ERRORLEVEL%
IF %ERRORLEVEL% == 1 ECHO PERMPING
IF %ERRORLEVEL% == 2 ECHO PINGLOOP

Answer 2

To expand on the answer above if command extensions are turned on you can also use:

if %errorlevel% equ 1 echo PERMPING
if %errorlevel% equ 2 echo PINGLOOP