Replace Backslash with Forwardslash in Windows batch script - windows

I am writing a simple batch script to get the filenames in a folder and write the output to a file. At the same time, I am appending a string to the file.
#echo off
set $string=!source ./
set "loc=C:\path\to\dir\files\scripts\"
pushd %loc%
(for %%a in (*) do (
echo %$string%%%~dpnxa))>output.txt
popd
output.txt:
!source ./C:\path\to\dir\files\scripts\abc.txt
!source ./C:\path\to\dir\files\scripts\xyz.txt
I am having a hard time replacing backslash \ with forward-slash / in the output and also removing this part C:\path\to\dir\files\ from the path.
In the end, I am trying to achieve something like this written to a file:
final_output.txt:
!source ./scripts/abc.txt
!source ./scripts/xyz.txt
Any help will be great.

#ECHO Off
SETLOCAL
set "$string=!source ./"
set "loc=U:\path\to\dir\files\scripts\"
pushd %loc%
FOR %%a IN ("%loc%.") DO SET "locparent=%%~dpa"
(for %%a in (*) do (
SET "line=%%~dpnxa"
CALL SET "line=%$string%%%line:%locparent%=%%"
CALL ECHO %%line:\=/%%))>output.txt
popd
GOTO :EOF
[I used drive u: for testing]
Yo can't substring a metavariable (%%a in this case) - you need to transfer to a uservariable.
Having established line, use call set to execute the command SET "line=valueof$string%line:valueofloc=%", which replaces the unrequired string already in line by nothing.
Then use call echo to execute ECHO %line:\=/%, replacing any remaining \ with /.
Your narrative states you wish to remove C:\path\to\dir\files\scripts from the output, but your example output includes scripts.
[adjusted include the leafname]

Related

How to get a specific line from command output in batch script into a variable?

I'd like to get a changelist description from perforce, which involves calling a p4 describe -s , so the ouput would be as below. Is there a way to get (trimmed characters from the third line) from the output just using windows batch syntax?
Change 6582 by username on 2016/12/06 00:35:41
MyChangeDescription
Affected files ...
... //depot/foo.txt#7 edit
... //depot/foo2.txt#6 edit
Give this a shot:
p4 -Ztag -F %Description% change -o 6582
#ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL
SET "sourcedir=U:\sourcedir"
SET "filename1=%sourcedir%\q40986156.txt"
FOR /f "usebackqskip=2tokens=*" %%a IN ("%filename1%") DO (
SET "desc=%%a"
GOTO show
)
:show
ECHO "%desc%"
GOTO :EOF
You would need to change the setting of sourcedir to suit your circumstances.
I used a file named q40986156.txt containing your data for my testing.
This uses a file as input. Since I don't have access to perforce, I can't test it but
#ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL
FOR /f "skip=2tokens=*" %%a IN ('p4 describe -s') DO (
SET "desc=%%a"
GOTO show
)
:show
ECHO "%desc%"
GOTO :EOF
should be equivalent.
Simply, read the output of the command, skip the first 2 lines, tokenise the entire line, skipping leading spaces. Assign the string found to a variable and immediately exit the loop.

Batch For file loop String Replacement

I have a few mp4 file in a directory, which was named by wget, an utility used to download files from the internet.
The thing is, it wrote filename as "1%20-%201%20-%20Overview%20%2802%3A09%29.mp4"(percent encoding of string "1 - 1 - Overview (02:09)"), which is a nuisance - it's not that straightforward. So I decided to use batch command to convert them.
As those files only contain a few special letters(space, colon and brackets), I thought I'd just execute a few commands in cmd, and after trying a few commands intended to change %20 to SPACE, I'm stuck.
In batch files, I'd use:
#echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
for %%i in (*.mp4) do (
set aaa=%%i
rename "%%i" "!aaa:%%20= !"
)
and I've tried (for testing):
SETLOCAL enabledelayedexpansion
FOR %i in (*.mp4) do (
SET aaa="%i"
echo "!aaa:%%20= !"
)
I tried changing '!' to '%', but it didn't work. It seems that it rather prints exactly what I wrote(like a few lines of !aaa:%%20= !), or the value of aaa doesn't change.
Can somebody help me? I thought just changing '%%' to '%' would convert a batch file script to cmd commands. What are other differences, if not?
#echo off
setlocal
:: Define simple macros to support JavaScript within batch
set "beginJS=mshta "javascript:close(new ActiveXObject('Scripting.FileSystemObject').GetStandardStream(1).Write("
set "endJS=));""
SETLOCAL enabledelayedexpansion
FOR %%i in (*.mp4) do (
for /f %%N in (
'%beginJS% decodeURIComponent("%%i") %endJS%'
) do set "dec=%%N"
echo !dec!
)
What if you try decodeURIComponent from javascript (with mshta) ?
Your problem is SETLOCAL does not work from the command line, so you never activate delayed expansion.
Also, you should put the quote before the variable being assigned so the quotes are not included in the value.
You can start a new cmd.exe shell with delayed expansion enabled to make things work.
cmd /v:on
FOR %i in (*.mp4) do (SET "aaa=%i"&echo "!aaa:%%20= !")
You need to be aware that you cannot change %3A to : because : is not valid in file names.
You might want to look into my JREN.BAT utility that uses regular expression search and replace to rename files:
You could do something like:
jren "%20" " " /fm *.mp4
jren "%3A" "." /fm *.mp4
You would need to precede each command with CALL and double the percents if you use the above in a batch script.
Note that I converted %3A to . instead of : because the colon cannot be used in a file name.

String substition but whole line isn't copied

Hi I have this code to substitute the path and then run iexpress to build an exe.
#echo off
set PATH=PATH
set FOLDER=FOLDER
set NEWPATH=%~dp0
set TARGET=%NEWPATH%install_32bitWindows.EXE
echo %TARGET%
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
for /f "tokens=2*" %%i in (install_32bitWindows.SED) do (
set str=%%i
echo %str%
set str=!str:%PATH%=%TARGET%!
set str=!str:%FOLDER%=%NEWPATH%!
echo !str! >> newfile
)
del install_32bitWindows.SED
rename newfile install_32bitWindows.SED
C:/Windows/SysWOW64/iexpress.exe /N %~dp0install_32bitWindows.SED
The substitution is done correctly but my problem is that one of the lines a space in it, and everything after the space isn't copied as such:
Originally
AppLaunched=c:\windows\system32\cscript.exe "install_32bitWindows.vbs"
After script:
AppLaunched=c:\windows\system32\cscript.exe
Why does the rest of the line get removed?
Thanks
Because all tokens after the second are concatenated into the implied %%j variable, which you are not referring to anywhere.
I 'm not sure what the correct processing would be, but this should point you to the correct direction:
>> newfile echo !str! %%j
I have moved the redirection to the beginning of the command so that the space before the >> is not spuriously inserted into the output file. Small stuff, but why not be precise?
In the absence of sample data, this becomes a bit of a guessing game.
Assuming your original ...SED filecontains lines of
string=anotherstring
and you wish to substitute different for certain fixed strings in that file, then
for /f "tokens=1*delims==" %%i in (install_32bitWindows.SED) do (
set str=%%j
(Note: 1* and %%j
should work BUT...
You appear to be substituting the newly-created file for the original, but the new file won't start string= because you don't output that part. If you want string=newstring then
echo %%i=!str! >> newfile
Finally, it's a really bad idea to use PATH as a user-variable in batch. PATH contains a semicolon-separated list of directories which batch uses to locate executables if the executable doesn't exist in the current directory. You change it, and batch will get amnesia vey quickly. Same goes for temp and tmp (point to a temporary directory) and a few other "reserved" names...

For loop in batch file reading a file of File Paths

I want to write a Windows batch file script that will loop through a text file of FILE PATHS, do some work using data from each file path, then ultimately delete the file.
I started by running the FORFILES command and sending its output (the #PATH parameter is the full path of any file it matches) to a text file (results.txt).
I end up with a results.txt file like this:
"C:/Windows/Dir1/fileA.log"
"C:/Windows/Dir1/fileA.log"
"C:/Windows/Dir2/fileC.log"
"C:/Windows/Dir3/fileB.log"
What I want to do is:
Use a FOR loop and read each line in the results.txt file
For each line (file path), strip out the directory name that the log file is sitting in (ie: Dir1, Dir2, etc..) and create a directory with that SAME name in a different location (ie. D:/Archive/Backups/Dir1, D:/Archive/Backups/Dir2, etc..) -- assuming the directory doesn't exist.
Move the actual .log file to a zip file in that directory [I have code to do this].
Delete the .log file from its original location. [Pretty straightforward]
I'm having trouble figuring out the best way to accomplish the first 2 steps. My FOR loop seems to stop after reading the very first line:
FOR /F "tokens=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 delims=\" %%G in ("results.txt") DO (
...
)
You don't want to parse the path with the tokens/delims options because you don't know how many directory levels you are dealing with. You want to preserve each line in its entirety. TO parse the path you want to use the FOR variable modifiers. (type HELP FOR from the command line and look at the last section of the output)
%%~pG gives the path (without the drive or file name). If we then strip off the last \, we can go through another FOR iteration and get the name (and possible extension) of the file's directory by using %%~nxA.
The toggling of delayed expansion is just to protect against a possible ! in the path. If you know that no path contains ! then you can simply enable delayed expansion at the top of the script and be done with it.
EDIT - this code has been modified significantly since Aacini pointed out that I misread the requirements. It should satisfy the requirements now.
for /f "usebackq delims=" %%G in ("results.txt") do (
set "myPath=%~pG"
setlocal enableDelayedExpansion
for /f "eol=: delims=" %%A in ("!myPath:~0,-1!") do (
endlocal
if not exist d:\Archive\Backups\%%~nxA md d:\Archive\Backups\%%~nxA
rem ::zip %%G into zip file in the D: location
rem ::you should be able to create the zip with the move option
rem ::so you don't have to del the file
)
)
I wrote this to timestamp files before offloading to SFTP.
Hope you find it useful.
The timestamp coding may seem irrelevant to your issue, but I left it because it's a good example of dissecting the filename itself.
I suggest you put an ECHO in front of the REN command for testing. Different shells may have different results.
In the end, the delayedexpansion command wasn't necessary. It was the sub-routine that fixed my issues with variables inside the loop. That could possibly be because of my OS ver. (Win 8.1) - It wouldn't hurt to leave it.
#echo off
cls
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
if %time:~0,2% geq 10 set TIMESTAMP=%date:~10,4%%date:~4,2%%date:~7,2%_%time:~0,2%%time:~3,2%%time:~6,2%
if %time:~0,2% leq 9 set TIMESTAMP=%date:~10,4%%date:~4,2%%date:~7,2%_0%time:~1,1%%time:~3,2%%time:~6,2%
echo TimeStamp=%TIMESTAMP%
echo.
for %%G in (*.txt) do (
set OLDNAME=%%G
call :MXYZPTLK
)
dir *.txt
goto :EOF
:MXYZPTLK
echo OldName=%OLDNAME%
ren %OLDNAME% %OLDNAME:~0,-4%_%TIMESTAMP%%OLDNAME:~-4,4%
echo.
:END
You have two minor problems:
The path separator in the file is '/' but you use '\' in the for loop.
The quotes around "results.txt" stop it working.
This works. Don't write quotes to results.txt and you won't get a quote at the end of the filename.
#echo off
FOR /F "tokens=3,4 delims=/" %%I in (results.txt) DO (
REM Directory
echo %%I
REM File
echo %%J
)

Loop over folder string and parse out last folder name

I need to grab the folder name of a currently executing batch file. I have been trying to loop over the current directory using the following syntax (which is wrong at present):
set mydir = %~p0
for /F "delims=\" %i IN (%mydir%) DO #echo %i
Couple of issues in that I cannot seem to pass the 'mydir' variable value in as the search string. It only seems to work if I pass in commands; I have the syntax wrong and cannot work out why.
My thinking was to loop over the folder string with a '\' delimiter but this is causing problems too. If I set a variable on each loop then the last value set will be the current folder name. For example, given the following path:
C:\Folder1\Folder2\Folder3\Archive.bat
I would expect to parse out the value 'Folder3'.
I need to parse that value out as its name will be part of another folder I am going to create further down in the batch file.
Many thanks if anyone can help. I may be barking up the wrong tree completely so any other approaches would be greatly received also.
After struggling with some of these suggestions, I found an successfully used the following 1 liner (in windows 2008)
for %%a in (!FullPath!) do set LastFolder=%%~nxa
You were pretty close to it :) This should work:
#echo OFF
set mydir="%~p0"
SET mydir=%mydir:\=;%
for /F "tokens=* delims=;" %%i IN (%mydir%) DO call :LAST_FOLDER %%i
goto :EOF
:LAST_FOLDER
if "%1"=="" (
#echo %LAST%
goto :EOF
)
set LAST=%1
SHIFT
goto :LAST_FOLDER
For some reason the for command doesn't like '\' as a delimiter, so I converted all '\' to ';' first (SET mydir=%mydir:\=;%)
I found this old thread when I was looking to find the last segment of the current directory.
The previous writers answers lead me to the following:
FOR /D %%I IN ("%CD%") DO SET _LAST_SEGMENT_=%%~nxI
ECHO Last segment = "%_LAST_SEGMENT_%"
As previous have explained, don't forget to put quotes around any paths create with %_LAST_SEGMENT_% (just as I did with %CD% in my example).
Hope this helps someone...
This question's a little old, but I've looked for a solution more than once so here's a completely new take on it that I've just put together.
The trick is that we take the desired path, back up one level to create a folder mask for substitution and then replace the folder mask with nothing.
To test it, simple copy and paste into a command script (.cmd) in any directory, then run it. It will spit out only the deepest directory you're currently in.
Notes:
Replace %~dp0 with whatever path you like (as it is, it will return the deepest folder the batch file is run from. This is not the same as %cd%.)
When specifying the 'pathtofind' variable ensure there are no quotes e.g. c:\some path and not "c:\some path".
The original idea for folder masking is mine
Spaces in the path are no problem
Folder depth is not a problem
It was made possible by the genius of this batch scripting tip http://www.dostips.com/DtCodeBatchFiles.php#Batch.FindAndReplace
Hope this helps someone else.
#echo off
set pathtofind=%~dp0
if not exist %pathtofind% echo Path does not exist&pause>nul&goto :eof
cd /d %pathtofind%
set path1=%cd%
cd ..
set path2=%cd%
call set "path3=%%path1:%path2%\=%%"
echo %path3%
pause>nul
3 lines of script gets the result...
Found 2 additional ways to accomplish the goal, and unlike the other answers to this question, it requires no batch "functions", no delayed expansion, and also does not have the limitation that Tim Peel's answer has with directory deepness :
#echo off
SET CDIR=%~p0
SET CDIR=%CDIR:~1,-1%
SET CDIR=%CDIR:\=,%
SET CDIR=%CDIR: =#%
FOR %%a IN (%CDIR%) DO SET "CNAME=%%a"
ECHO Current directory path: %CDIR%
SET CNAME=%CNAME:#= %
ECHO Current directory name: %CNAME%
pause
REVISION: after my new revsion, here is an example output:
Current directory path: Documents#and#Settings,username,.sqldeveloper,tmp,my_folder,MY.again
Current directory name: MY.again
Press any key to continue . . .
This means that the script doesn't handle '#' or ',' in a folder name but can be adjusted to do so.
ADDENDUM: After asking someone in the dostips forum, found an even easier way to do it:
#echo off
SET "CDIR=%~dp0"
:: for loop requires removing trailing backslash from %~dp0 output
SET "CDIR=%CDIR:~0,-1%"
FOR %%i IN ("%CDIR%") DO SET "PARENTFOLDERNAME=%%~nxi"
ECHO Parent folder: %PARENTFOLDERNAME%
ECHO Full path: %~dp0
pause>nul
To return to the original poster's issue:
For example, given the following path:
C:\Folder1\Folder2\Folder3\Archive.bat
I would expect to parse out the value 'Folder3'.
The simple solution for that is:
for /D %%I in ("C:\Folder1\Folder2\Folder3\Archive.bat\..") do echo parentdir=%%~nxI
will give 'Folder3'. The file/path does not need to exist. Of course, .... for the parent's parent dir, or ...... for the one above that (and so on) work too.
Slight alteration for if any of the folders have spaces in their names - replace space to ':' before and after operation:
set mydir="%~p0"
set mydir=%mydir:\=;%
set mydir=%mydir: =:%
for /F "tokens=* delims=;" %%i IN (%mydir%) DO call :LAST_FOLDER %%i
goto :EOF
:LAST_FOLDER
if "%1"=="" (
set LAST=%LAST::= %
goto :EOF
)
set LAST=%1
SHIFT
goto :LAST_FOLDER
Sheesh guys, what a mess. This is pretty easy, and it's faster to do this in memory without CD.
This gets the last two directories of a path. Modify it as required to get the last tokens of any line. My original code I based this on has more complexity for my own purposes.
Fyi, this probably doesn't allow paths with exclamation marks since I'm using enabledelayedexpansion, but that could be fixed.
It also won't work on a plain drive root. This could be averted in a number of ways. Check what the input path ends with, or a counter, or modifying the token and check behaviour, etc.
#echo off&setlocal enableextensions,enabledelayedexpansion
call :l_truncpath "C:\Windows\temp"
----------
:l_truncpath
set "_pathtail=%~1"
:l_truncpathloop
for /f "delims=\ tokens=1*" %%x in ("!_pathtail!") do (
if "%%y"=="" (
set "_result=!_path!\!_pathtail!"
echo:!_result!
exit/b
)
set "_path=%%x"
set "_pathtail=%%y"
)
goto l_truncpathloop
I modified answer given by #Jonathan, since it did not work for me in a batch file, but this below does work, and also supports folders with spaces in it.:
for %%a in ("%CD%") do set LastFolder=%%~nxa
echo %LastFolder%
This takes the current directory and echoes the last, deepest folder, as in below example, if the folder is this:
C:\Users\SuperPDX\OneDrive\Desktop Environment\
The batch code echoes this: Desktop Environment
In batch files in the FOR command you'll need to prepend %whatever with an extra % (e.g. %%whatever).
'echo %~p0' will print the currently directory of the batch file.
This is what we had in the end (little bit more crude and can only go so deep :)
#echo off
for /f "tokens=1-10 delims=\" %%A in ('echo %~p0') do (
if NOT .%%A==. set new=%%A
if NOT .%%B==. set new=%%B
if NOT .%%C==. set new=%%C
if NOT .%%D==. set new=%%D
if NOT .%%E==. set new=%%E
if NOT .%%F==. set new=%%F
if NOT .%%G==. set new=%%G
if NOT .%%H==. set new=%%H
if NOT .%%I==. set new=%%I
if NOT .%%J==. set new=%%J
)
#echo %new%
I don't know if it's the version of windows I'm on (win2k3), but the FOR loop isn't giving me anything useful for trying to iterate through a single string.
According to my observation (and the FOR /? info) you get one iteration for each line of input to FOR, and there is no way to change this to iterate within a line. You can break into multiple tokens for a given line, but it is only one invocation of the FOR loop body.
I do think the CALL :LABEL approach in these answers does a great job. Something I didn't know until looking at this was that ";" and "," are both recognized as argument separators. So once you replace backslashes with semicolons, you can call your label and iterate through with SHIFT.
So working off of what is posted by others here, I have the below solution. Instead of grabbing the last folder name, I actually wanted to find everything up until some known directory name.. this is what is implemented below.
#echo off
if "%1"=="" goto :USAGE
set FULLPATH=%~f1
set STOPDIR=%2
set PATHROOT=
:: Replace backslashes with semicolons
set FULLPATH=%FULLPATH:\=;%
:: Iterate through path (the semicolons cause each dir name to be a new argument)
call :LOOP %FULLPATH%
goto :EOF
:LOOP
::Exit loop if reached the end of the path, or the stop dir
if "%1"=="" (goto :EOF)
if "%1"=="%STOPDIR%" (goto :EOF)
::If this is the first segment of the path, set value directly. Else append.
if not defined PATHROOT (set PATHROOT=%1) else (set PATHROOT=%PATHROOT%\%1)
::shift the arguments - the next path segment becomes %i
SHIFT
goto :LOOP
:USAGE
echo Usage:
echo %~0 ^<full path to parse^> ^<dir name to stop at^>
echo E.g. for a command:
echo %~0 c:\root1\child1\child2 child2
echo The value of c:\root1\child1 would be assigned to env variable PATHROOT
Unfortunatelly, this is working great only when put on some depth but have problems with being on the very top of the mountain... Putting this program into "C:\Windows" e.g. will result with... "C:\Windows", not expected "Windows". Still great job, and still damage can be repaired. My approach:
#echo off
set pathtofind=%~dp0
if not exist %pathtofind% echo Path does not exist&pause>nul&goto :eof
cd /d %pathtofind%
set path1=%cd%
cd ..
set path2=%cd%
set path4=%~dp1
call set "path3=%%path1:%path2%\=%%"
call set "path5=%%path3:%path4%*\=%%"
echo %path5%
pause>nul
And it's working just fine for me now, thanks for the idea, I was looking for something like that for some time.

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