Command executed from else block in Windows batch script returning wrong errorlevel

Question

I am new to batch scripting and while fiddling with the simple ones in my Windows 7 pc, I stuck on the following -

command1  
echo %errorlevel%  
    if %errorlevel% neq 0 (  
                echo -- Error occured during command1 execution ---           
        goto :eof  
    )   else (   
               echo -- command1 execution was successful ---  
               command2   
               echo %errorlevel%   
               if %errorlevel% neq 0 (              
                   echo -- Error occured during command2 execution ---          
                   goto :eof  
               )    
             )      

Here, command1 excution is successful(checked separately) and it is returning errorlevel 0(success) while command2 is failing(checked separately) and instead of no zero (failure) it is returning errorlevel as 0. But when I remove else condition, command2 execution is returning 1 (failure). Curious to know the reason.

As suggested, now I am declaring setlocal enabledelayedexpansion at the begining and instead of %errorlevel%, using !errorlevel! and it is giving desired errorlevel on success/failure.
But now I am facing another problem. I am calling another command (suppose command3 in place of command2). It inturn calls one of my java class which is throwing java.lang.StringIndexOutOfBoundsException. But in my .bat file it is returning errorlevel as 0, instead of 1 whereas command3 got failed (checked seperately). Below is my latest script -

@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
command1  
echo call !errorlevel!
    if !errorlevel! neq 0 (  
                echo -- Error occured during command1 execution ---           
        goto :eof  
    )
               echo -- command1 execution was successful ---  
               REM command3  
               java MyclassName > logfilename.log 2>&1                   
               echo call !errorlevel!   
               if !errorlevel! neq 0 (              
                   echo -- Error occured during command3 execution ---          
                   goto :eof  
               )                      
echo --- command3 Executoin was successful---

How to force !errorlevel! to return correct value when it is failed with some exception. Please help.

Answer 1

You need to invoke delayedexpansion [hundreds of SO articles about that - use the search feature] in order to display the run-time value of any variable that's changed within a parenthesised series of instructions (aka "code block").

With your current code, if you want to display the actual error returned by command2 use

           CALL echo %%errorlevel%%

and if you want to execute an if on the run-time value of errorlevel , then use

           if errorlevel 1 (

IF ERRORLEVEL n is TRUE if errorlevel is n or greater than n . IF ERRORLEVEL 0 is therefore always true. IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 is a test for errorlevel=0.

Answer 2

Try this amended version of the code, let's actually use the if and else

@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
command1 2>&1
echo !errorlevel!
if !errorlevel! neq 0 (  
         echo -- Error occured during command1 execution ---        
     ) else (
          echo -- command1 execution was successful ---
          command3 2>&1
          echo !errorlevel!
              if !errorlevel! neq 0 (              
                   echo -- Error occured during command3 execution ---          
               ) else (                     
                   echo --- command3 Execution was successful---
           )
      )