Best way to view a command return code in DOS

Question

Sometimes I run a command in cmd such as:

fc /b file1 file2

and would like to see the return code from fc. Is there a simple way to do this?

Answer 1

echo %ERRORLEVEL%

From TechNet, Command shell overview: "%ERRORLEVEL% ... Returns the error code of the most recently used command. A non zero value usually indicates an error."

To test for specific error levels in batch files, you may find this knowledgebase article useful.