how to give relative path in a batch file?

Here is the trick I use to solve changing paths. In short,

1. Make all path relative to the batch file location, and
2. Make the batch file change its own working directory.

It helps if the tools you call are in the path, or in a location defined by an environment variable.

Something like this :

@echo off pushd %~dp0 REM Here you are executing in the same directory as the batch file REM You can make your path relative to here popd 

For your project, you can use the same %~dp0 as a place holder for the absolute path.

pushd C:\soapui4.5\soapUI-Pro-4.5.0\bin testrunner.bat -EDefault -I -t%~dp0soapui-settings.xml %~dp0April-RTM-soapui-project.xml popd 

Getting an absolute path from a relative path requires somebody to do some calculation. The three options I know of are: i) an add-on program that does nothing but path calculations, ii) use the "current directory", and iii) smash the two paths together. Here are rough illustrations of methods ii) and iii):

REM example "givens" set DRIVE=C: set ROOTPATH=\fee\fie\fo set RELPATH=funky\stuff set FILENAME=blarf.txt REM method ii) using the "current directory" functionality %DRIVE% cd %ROOTPATH% cd %RELPATH% more %FILENAME% REM method iii) using explicit concatenation set FULLPATH=%DRIVE%%ROOTPATH%\%RELPATH% set PATHFILENAME=%FULLPATH%\%FILENAME% more %PATHFILENAME% REM DOS/BAT handling of drive letter is odd (is it part of the path, or not?) REM It may be necessary to use "cd /D ..." REM Path calculations are easier REM so long as DOS/BAT understands that "\\" is the same as "\" 

Maybe you want this:

cd C:\soapui4.5\soapUI-Pro-4.5.0\bin testrunner.bat -t%USERPROFILE%\soapui-settings.xml %USERPROFILE%\Documents\April-RTM-soapui-project.xml 

USERPROFILE is a system environment variable containing the path to the current user's home directory. In your session it will evaluate to

C:\Users\jvihol 

and in someone else's, to

C:\Users\someone else's user name