How to find total commas in the first line of a file? - windows

Question

I want create a batch file to find the total number of commas in the first line of text file.
Sample Text File
input.txt
12345,Bhavik
12323,Bhavik,Sanghvi
Output
1
I tried to surf net for this but couldnt find a solution, please help

Answer 1

Here's another simple solution to this question.
#echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
set LF=^
::Above 2 blank lines are critical - do not remove
for /f %%a in ('copy /Z "%~dpf0" nul') do set "CR=%%a"
set /p var=<input.txt
echo "%var:,="!cr!!lf!"..***..%">temp.file
find /c "..***.." <temp.file
del temp.file

Answer 2

#echo off
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
rem Read the first line
set /P "line=" < input.txt
rem Store it in a text file
> before.txt echo !line!
rem Store the line without commas in a second file
> after.txt echo !line:,=!
rem Get the difference in sizes between both files
set "diff="
for %%a in (before.txt after.txt) do (
if not defined diff (
set "diff=%%~Za"
) else (
set /A "diff-=%%~Za"
)
)
del before.txt after.txt
echo %diff%

Answer 3

If, rather than being hampered by the awful Windows BATCH tools, you install awk from the Unix tools for Windows here, you can do this:
awk -F, 'NR==1{print NF-1;exit}' input.txt
That says... "Run awk and use commas as the separator to divide fields. On line 1, print the number of fields on this line minus 1, then exit. Do that for file input.txt."
gawk is just a slightly different version of awk if you get that one in the Unix Utils package. You may need to replace the single quotes with double ones to accommodate Windows' lack of abilities.

Answer 4

#ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL
SET "sourcedir=U:\sourcedir"
SET "filename1=%sourcedir%\q35826440.txt"
:: first method
SET /a count=0
FOR /f "usebackqdelims=" %%a IN ("%filename1%") DO SET "line=%%a"&GOTO got1
:got1
SET "line=%line:"=%"
IF NOT DEFINED line ECHO method 1: %count% found&GOTO method2
IF "%line:~-1%"=="," SET /a count+=1
SET "line=%line:~0,-1%"
GOTO got1
:: second method
:method2
SET /a count=-1
FOR /f "usebackqdelims=" %%a IN ("%filename1%") DO SET "line=%%a"&GOTO got2
:got2
SET "line=%line:"=%"
SET "line=%line:;=%"
SET "line=%line: =%"
SET "line=%line:,=x,x%"
FOR %%a IN (%line%) DO SET /a count+=1
ECHO method 2: %count% found
GOTO :EOF
You would need to change the setting of sourcedir to suit your circumstances.
I used a file named q35826440.txt containing your data for my testing.
Two methods - both read the first line to line, then removes any " characters.
The first then mechanically loops, checking whether the last character is a comma, counting if it is and removing the last character until the string found is empty.
The second replaces all ; and Space characters (for good measure, Tab could be removed too) and then replacing commas with x,x.
The result is that the only separators left are commas, and there will be 1 more item in the list so formed than there are commas.
Hence, start the counter at -1 and increment for each element found in the list.

Answer 5

Next solution (similar to Magoo's second method) seems to treat even ˙cmd˙ and .bat poisonous characters supposed in input file:
#ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL EnableExtensions DisableDelayedExpansion
set "infile=D:\bat\SO\files\35826440input.txt" change to suit your circumstances
set /A "commacount=-1"
for /F "usebackq delims=" %%G in ("%infile%") do (
set "line=%%G"
call :parseline
if /I not "%~1"=="/all" goto :continue
)
:continue
echo script continues here
ENDLOCAL
exit /B
:parseline
rem treat unbalanced doublequote in next line
set "lineToParse=%line:"=§%"
set "lineToParse=%lineToParse:,=","%"
set /A "commacount=-1"
for %%g in ("%lineToParse%") do (
set /A "commacount+=1"
rem echo %line%, !commacount!, %%g
)
echo %commacount% "%line%"
goto :eof
Output (with input file listing):
==> D:\bat\SO\35826440.bat
1 "12345,Bhavik"
script continues here
==> D:\bat\SO\35826440.bat /all
1 "12345,Bhavik"
2 "12323,Bhavik,Sanghvi"
3 "12323,Bhavik,Sanghvi,three"
0 "zero"
1 ",1 leading"
2 ",,2 leading"
1 "trailing,"
2 "2 trailing,,"
2 "2 middle,,mid"
4 "!OS!,!,!!,!!!,exclamations"
4 "%OS%,%,%%%,%%,percents"
8 "&,|,>,<,",",;,=,miscelaneous"
0 "unbalanced"doublequote"
script continues here
==> type D:\bat\SO\files\35826440input.txt
12345,Bhavik
12323,Bhavik,Sanghvi
12323,Bhavik,Sanghvi,three
zero
,1 leading
,,2 leading
trailing,
2 trailing,,
2 middle,,mid
!OS!,!,!!,!!!,exclamations
%OS%,%,%%%,%%,percents
&,|,>,<,",",;,=,miscelaneous
unbalanced"doublequote
==>