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Scripting Reference

4.1 Script File Format
4.2 Instructions
4.3 Plugin DLLs

0. Table of Contents
1. Introduction to NSIS
2. Tutorial: The Basics
3. MakeNSIS Usage
4. Scripting Reference
B. Useful Functions
Index

• Lines beginning with ; or # are comments.
• Non-comment lines are in the form of '[command parameters]'
• To call a plugin, use 'plugin::command [command parameters]'. For more info see Section 4.3 Plugin DLLs.
• Anything after a ; or # that is not in a parameter (i.e. in quotes or part of another string) is treated as a comment. (e.g. "File myfile ; this is the file" would work)
• For parameters that are treated as numbers, use decimal (the number) or hexadecimal (with 0x prepended to it, e.g. 0x12345AB), or octal (numbers beginning with a 0 and no x, e.g. 0377).
• To represent strings that have spaces, use quotes.
• Quotes only have the property of containing a parameter if they begin the parameter.
• Quotes can be either single quotes, double quotes, or the backward single quote.
• You can escape quotes using $\.
• Examples:

  MessageBox MB_OK "I'll be happy" ; this one puts a ' inside a string MessageBox MB_OK 'And he said to me "Hi there!"' ; this one puts a " inside a string MessageBox MB_OK `And he said to me "I'll be ******!"` ; this one puts both ' and "s inside a string MessageBox MB_OK "$\"A quote from a wise man$\" said the wise man" ; this one shows escaping of quotes

• To extend a command over multiple lines, use a backslash (\) at the end of the line, and the next line will effectively be concatenated the end of it. For example:

  CreateShortCut "$SMPROGRAMS\NSIS\ZIP2EXE project workspace.lnk" \ "$INSTDIR\source\zip2exe\zip2exe.dsw" MessageBox MB_YESNO|MB_ICONQUESTION \ "Remove all files in your NSIS directory? (If you have anything \ you created that you want to keep, click No)" \ IDNO NoRemoveLabel

• If a file named "nsisconf.nsh" in the same directory as makensis.exe exists, it will be included by default before any scripts (unless the /NOCONFIG command line parameter is used).