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Assign output of a program to a variable using a MS batch file
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How to set commands output as a variable in a batch file [duplicate]
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Closed 9 months ago.
I'm looking to get the result of a command as a variable in a Windows batch script (see how to get the result of a command in bash for the bash scripting equivalent). A solution that will work in a .bat file is preferred, but other common windows scripting solutions are also welcome.
The humble for command has accumulated some interesting capabilities over the years:
D:\> FOR /F "delims=" %i IN ('date /t') DO set today=%i
D:\> echo %today%
Sat 20/09/2008
Note that "delims=" overwrites the default space and tab delimiters so that the output of the date command gets gobbled all at once.
To capture multi-line output, it can still essentially be a one-liner (using the variable lf as the delimiter in the resulting variable):
REM NB:in a batch file, need to use %%i not %i
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
SET lf=-
FOR /F "delims=" %%i IN ('dir \ /b') DO if ("!out!"=="") (set out=%%i) else (set out=!out!%lf%%%i)
ECHO %out%
To capture a piped expression, use ^|:
FOR /F "delims=" %%i IN ('svn info . ^| findstr "Root:"') DO set "URL=%%i"
If you have to capture all the command output you can use a batch like this:
#ECHO OFF
IF NOT "%1"=="" GOTO ADDV
SET VAR=
FOR /F %%I IN ('DIR *.TXT /B /O:D') DO CALL %0 %%I
SET VAR
GOTO END
:ADDV
SET VAR=%VAR%!%1
:END
All output lines are stored in VAR separated with "!".
But if only a single-line console-output is expected, try:
#ECHO off
#SET MY_VAR=
FOR /F %%I IN ('npm prefix') DO #SET "MY_VAR=%%I"
#REM Do something with MY_VAR variable...
#John: is there any practical use for this? I think you should watch PowerShell or any other programming language capable to perform scripting tasks easily (Python, Perl, PHP, Ruby)
To get the current directory, you can use this:
CD > tmpFile
SET /p myvar= < tmpFile
DEL tmpFile
echo test: %myvar%
It's using a temp-file though, so it's not the most pretty, but it certainly works! 'CD' puts the current directory in 'tmpFile', 'SET' loads the content of tmpFile.
Here is a solution for multiple lines with "array's":
#echo off
rem ---------
rem Obtain line numbers from the file
rem ---------
rem This is the file that is being read: You can replace this with %1 for dynamic behaviour or replace it with some command like the first example i gave with the 'CD' command.
set _readfile=test.txt
for /f "usebackq tokens=2 delims=:" %%a in (`find /c /v "" %_readfile%`) do set _max=%%a
set /a _max+=1
set _i=0
set _filename=temp.dat
rem ---------
rem Make the list
rem ---------
:makeList
find /n /v "" %_readfile% >%_filename%
rem ---------
rem Read the list
rem ---------
:readList
if %_i%==%_max% goto printList
rem ---------
rem Read the lines into the array
rem ---------
for /f "usebackq delims=] tokens=2" %%a in (`findstr /r "\[%_i%]" %_filename%`) do set _data%_i%=%%a
set /a _i+=1
goto readList
:printList
del %_filename%
set _i=1
:printMore
if %_i%==%_max% goto finished
set _data%_i%
set /a _i+=1
goto printMore
:finished
But you might want to consider moving to another more powerful shell or create an application for this stuff. It's stretching the possibilities of the batch files quite a bit.
you need to use the SET command with parameter /P and direct your output to it.
For example see http://www.ss64.com/nt/set.html. Will work for CMD, not sure about .BAT files
From a comment to this post:
That link has the command "Set /P
_MyVar=<MyFilename.txt" which says it will set _MyVar to the first line
from MyFilename.txt. This could be
used as "myCmd > tmp.txt" with "set
/P myVar=<tmp.txt". But it will only
get the first line of the output, not
all the output
Example to set in the "V" environment variable the most recent file
FOR /F %I IN ('DIR *.* /O:D /B') DO SET V=%I
in a batch file you have to use double prefix in the loop variable:
FOR /F %%I IN ('DIR *.* /O:D /B') DO SET V=%%I
I would like to add a remark to the above solutions:
All these syntaxes work perfectly well IF YOUR COMMAND IS FOUND WITHIN THE PATH or IF THE COMMAND IS A cmdpath WITHOUT SPACES OR SPECIAL CHARACTERS.
But if you try to use an executable command located in a folder which path contains special characters then you would need to enclose your command path into double quotes (") and then the FOR /F syntax does not work.
Examples:
$ for /f "tokens=* USEBACKQ" %f in (
`""F:\GLW7\Distrib\System\Shells and scripting\f2ko.de\folderbrowse.exe"" Hello '"F:\GLW7\Distrib\System\Shells and scripting"'`
) do echo %f
The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.
or
$ for /f "tokens=* USEBACKQ" %f in (
`"F:\GLW7\Distrib\System\Shells and scripting\f2ko.de\folderbrowse.exe" "Hello World" "F:\GLW7\Distrib\System\Shells and scripting"`
) do echo %f
'F:\GLW7\Distrib\System\Shells' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
or
`$ for /f "tokens=* USEBACKQ" %f in (
`""F:\GLW7\Distrib\System\Shells and scripting\f2ko.de\folderbrowse.exe"" "Hello World" "F:\GLW7\Distrib\System\Shells and scripting"`
) do echo %f
'"F:\GLW7\Distrib\System\Shells and scripting\f2ko.de\folderbrowse.exe"" "Hello' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
In that case, the only solution I found to use a command and store its result in a variable is to set (temporarily) the default directory to the one of command itself :
pushd "%~d0%~p0"
FOR /F "tokens=* USEBACKQ" %%F IN (
`FOLDERBROWSE "Hello world!" "F:\GLW7\Distrib\System\Layouts (print,display...)"`
) DO (SET MyFolder=%%F)
popd
echo My selected folder: %MyFolder%
The result is then correct:
My selected folder: F:\GLW7\Distrib\System\OS install, recovery, VM\
Press any key to continue . . .
Of course in the above example, I assume that my batch script is located in the same folder as the one of my executable command so that I can use the "%~d0%~p0" syntax. If this is not your case, then you have to find a way to locate your command path and change the default directory to its path.
NB: For those who wonder, the sample command used here (to select a folder) is FOLDERBROWSE.EXE. I found it on the web site f2ko.de (http://f2ko.de/en/cmd.php).
If anyone has a better solution for that kind of commands accessible through a complex path, I will be very glad to hear of it.
Gilles
Just use the result from the FOR command. For example (inside a batch file):
for /F "delims=" %%I in ('dir /b /a-d /od FILESA*') do (echo %%I)
You can use the %%I as the value you want. Just like this: %%I.
And in advance the %%I does not have any spaces or CR characters and can be used for comparisons!!
If you're looking for the solution provided in Using the result of a command as an argument in bash?
then here is the code:
#echo off
if not "%1"=="" goto get_basename_pwd
for /f "delims=X" %%i in ('cd') do call %0 %%i
for /f "delims=X" %%i in ('dir /o:d /b') do echo %%i>>%filename%.txt
goto end
:get_basename_pwd
set filename=%~n1
:end
This will call itself with the result of the CD command, same as pwd.
String extraction on parameters will return the filename/folder.
Get the contents of this folder and append to the filename.txt
[Credits]: Thanks to all the other answers and some digging on the Windows XP commands page.
#echo off
ver | find "6.1." > nul
if %ERRORLEVEL% == 0 (
echo Win7
for /f "delims=" %%a in ('DIR "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\*Outlook.EXE" /B /P /S') do call set findoutlook=%%a
%findoutlook%
)
ver | find "5.1." > nul
if %ERRORLEVEL% == 0 (
echo WinXP
for /f "delims=" %%a in ('DIR "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\*Outlook.EXE" /B /P /S') do call set findoutlook=%%a
%findoutlook%
)
echo Outlook dir: %findoutlook%
"%findoutlook%"
You can capture all output in one variable, but the lines will be separated by a character of your choice (# in the example below) instead of an actual CR-LF.
#echo off
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
for /f "delims=" %%i in ('dir /b') do (
if "!DIR!"=="" (set DIR=%%i) else (set DIR=!DIR!#%%i)
)
echo directory contains:
echo %DIR%
Second version, if you need to print the contents out line-by-line. This takes advanted of the fact that there won't be duplicate lines of output from "dir /b", so it may not work in the general case.
#echo off
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
set count=0
for /f "delims=" %%i in ('dir /b') do (
if "!DIR!"=="" (set DIR=%%i) else (set DIR=!DIR!#%%i)
set /a count = !count! + 1
)
echo directory contains:
echo %DIR%
for /l %%c in (1,1,%count%) do (
for /f "delims=#" %%i in ("!DIR!") do (
echo %%i
set DIR=!DIR:%%i=!
)
)
#echo off
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
FOR /F "tokens=1 delims= " %%i IN ('echo hola') DO (
set TXT=%%i
)
echo 'TXT: %TXT%'
the result is 'TXT: hola'
You should use the for command, here is an example:
#echo off
rem Commands go here
exit /b
:output
for /f "tokens=* useback" %%a in (`%~1`) do set "output=%%a"
and you can use call :output "Command goes here" then the output will be in the %output% variable.
Note: If you have a command output that is multiline, this tool will set the output to the last line of your multiline command.
Please refer to this http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490982.aspx which explains what you can do with command output.
I'm new to batch script, I have a file with a string containing the word "media"(quotes included) and I need to insert another string right before it.
I messed around with findstr but couldn't make heads or tails of it.
Edit2:
here's what i did, doesn't seem to work:
#echo off
SETLOCAL=ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
for /f "delims=," %%a in (f1.txt) do (
set foo=%%a
if !foo!=="media"
set var=!foo:"media"=aa"media"!
echo !foo! >> f2.txt)
You have two options to do this. You can read the file with a FOR /F command or if you are just editing a single line file then you can use the SET /P command.
Here are both of those examples in a single batch file.
#echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
for /F "delims=" %%G in (sotemp.txt) do (
set "line=%%G"
set "foo=!line:"media"=aa"media"!"
echo !foo!
)
set /p "line="<sotemp.txt
echo %line:"media"=aa"media"%
pause
If you have a variable inside this for /f command, it doesn't get printed out to file.
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
for /F %%i in ('dir /B') do (
set duration=asdf
echo %duration% > file.txt
)
Contents of file.txt: Echo is ON.
If you move set duration=asdf out of for /f wrap and put it below setlocal line it works correct and prints asdf into file.txt
Why? How do I do this with the set variable inside the for command?
This is due to delayed expansion, which stops variables from being set and used, in the same command.
You are getting Echo is ON. in file.txt, because to the command interpreter it's reading the echo command as:
echo > file.txt
Which as documented by echo /?
Type ECHO without parameters to display the current echo setting.
The simplest fix is to replace the % with !
Updated script:
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
for /F %%i in ('dir /B') do (
set duration=asdf
echo !duration! > file.txt
)
Is it possible to set the output of TYPE or ECHO as a variable in a batch file?
Convoluted, and it only works for a single line, but general:
for /f "delims=" %%x in ('some command with output') do set "Var=%%x"
For echo you don't need to do anything special, just change
echo Foo
into
set Var=Foo
And for files there is also the option of either
set /p Var=<file.txt
or
for /f "delims=" %%x in (file.txt) do set "Var=%%x"
I have the following For loop in a batch file:
for /R c:\test\src %%i IN (*.*) DO (
MOVE %%i C:\test\destination
ECHO %%i
exit
)
The result of the ECHO outputs the entire file path Ex: C:\Foldername\Filename
I need to ECHO out only the Filename.Is there a specific command which would give me the filename ?
Thanks !
When Command Extensions are enabled (Windows XP and newer, roughly), you can use the syntax %~nF (where F is the variable and ~n is the request for its name) to only get the filename.
FOR /R C:\Directory %F in (*.*) do echo %~nF
should echo only the filenames.
or Just %~F will give you the full path and full file name.
For example, if you want to register all *.ax files in the current directory....
FOR /R C:. %F in (*.ax) do regsvr32 "%~F"
This works quite nicely in Win7 (64bit) :-)
The answer by #AKX works on the command line, but not within a batch file. Within a batch file, you need an extra %, like this:
#echo off
for /R TutorialSteps %%F in (*.py) do echo %%~nF
I am a little late but I used this:
dir /B *.* > dir_file.txt
then you can make a simple FOR loop to extract the file name and use them. e.g:
for /f "tokens=* delims= " %%a in (dir_file.txt) do (
gawk -f awk_script_file.awk %%a
)
or store them into Vars (!N1!, !N2!..!Nn!) for later use. e.g:
set /a N=0
for /f "tokens=* delims= " %%a in (dir_file.txt) do (
set /a N+=1
set v[!N!]=%%a
)
If you want to remain both filename (only) and extension, you may use %~nxF:
FOR /R C:\Directory %F in (*.*) do echo %~nxF