So I was tasked with making a batch file that does a few specific things. I've never worked with batch before, and I'm finding it hard to find tutorials on what exactly I need. (I've done basic tutorials)
I'm trying to get the most currently edited file from a directory. The only thing I've came up with (and I've noticed other people said to do) is a for loop of files in the directory sorted by date and then just get the first file and break the loop.
Some problems:
1) My loop never breaks
2) My ECHO %variable% doesn't work at the end.
#echo off
SET count=0
FOR /f %%i in ('DIR Y:\ /B /O:-D') DO (
IF count==0 (
SET NewestFile=%%i
SET count=1
)
)
#echo on
ECHO %NewestFile%
When I run this, I get:
C:\>testing.bat
C:\>ECHO
ECHO is on.
I am 100% new to Batch. Maybe I'm doing something that this is really picky about? (Other StackOverflow questions have been solved by people just adding aa space or stuff like that)
Your condition is never met because the string count is never equal to the string 0. You need
if !count!==0 (
set NewestFile=%%i
set count=1
)
But then you also need delayed expansion (at the beginning of your batch file):
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
The problem here is that you need to tell the batch file that there is a variable. Like foo in Perl won't magically resolve to the contents of the $foo variable count in your batch file isn't equivalent to %count% (the variable contents) or !count! (the same, but with delayed expansion).
Delayed expansion is necessary because the whole for loop is parsed at once. And cmd replaces normal (%foo%) variables with their contents during parsing so that during execution only the values remain. So once execution reaches the if there would be the condition 0==0 because that's what count's value was before the loop. Delayed expansion (using the !foo! syntax) expands the variables immediately prior to execution, so this does not happen.
For more help on delayed expansion you can read help set.
Another way would be to just use absence or presence of the count variable:
SET count=
FOR /f %%i in ('DIR Y:\ /B /O:-D') DO (
IF not defined count (
SET NewestFile=%%i
SET count=1
)
)
This works around the problem above because there is no variable to replace during parsing. All we're doing is a run-time check whether the variable count exists.
If you supplied accurate code then you want to get the first line - and this is one way to do that.
#echo off
FOR /f %%i in ('DIR Y:\ /B /O:-D') DO SET "NewestFile=%%i" & goto :done
:done
ECHO %NewestFile%
If you change the dir command to list the files in ascending order instead of descending order, you can use this one-liner which doesn't need any of the common bizarre cmd.exe scripting hacks. It just keeps the last line of output in the NewestFile variable (I guess it might qualify as a cmd.exe scripting hack, but I don't think it qualifies as bizarre):
for /f %%i in ('DIR Y:\ /B /O:D') do set NewestFile=%%i
Related
Preface
While writing a separate piece of code, I encountered a problem with question marks in for loops. As shown below, the question mark is not accessed in the for loop.
Batch file:
#echo off
for %%x in (the, quick, ?, brown, fox) do (
echo %%x
)
Output:
the
quick
brown
fox
This also does not work in the CMD (using %x instead of %%x), or when using "", [], ^, \, % or other common methods of character escaping.
Using a counter variable to determine the number of times the code within the parentheses was accessed only results in a total count of 4, meaning it is clearly not a problem with the echo command.
Question
Why doesn't a question mark work in a standard for loop, and how would I go about fixing it?
It's because ? will be expanded into a list of filenames one character long. The "naked" for is using that list as a list of filenames.
If you run the following commands, you'll see this in action:
c:\> echo xx >a
c:\> echo xx >b
c:\> for %i in (1, ?) do echo %x
1
a
b
If you look at Rob van der Woude's excellent scripting pages, you'll see that the for page has options for processing command output, numbers and files - it's not really suited for arbitrary strings.
One way to get around that is to provide your own for-like command as shown in the following example:
#echo off
setlocal enableextensions enabledelayedexpansion
rem Call the callback function for each argument.
set escapee=/
call :doFor :processEach 1 2 ? 4 5
echo.Escapee was %escapee%
rem Execute simple command for each argument.
call :doFor echo 6 7 ? 9 10
endlocal
goto :eof
:processEach
set escapee=%escapee%%1/
goto :eof
:doFor
setlocal
rem Get action.
set cbAction=%1
shift
:dfloop
rem Process each argument with callback or command.
if not "%1" == "" (
call %cbAction% %1
shift
goto :dfloop
)
endlocal&&set escapee=%escapee%
goto :eof
This provides a single functions which can handle both callbacks and simple commands. For more complex commands, provide a callback function and it will get called with each argument in turn. The callback function can be arbitrarily complex but keep in mind that, because it's operating within a setlocal, changes to environment variables cannot escape back to the caller.
As a way around this, it allows one variable, escapee, to escape the scope - you could also add more if needed.
For simple commands (like echo) where you just need the argument placed at the end, you do the same thing. It doesn't need a callback function but it's restricted to very simple scenarios.
Also keep in mind that, although this seems like a lot of code, the vast majority of it only needs to exist in one place. To use it, you simply need a one-liner like the sample:
call :doFor echo my hovercraft is full of eels
Also keep in mind that there may be other characters that do not fare well, even with this scheme. It solves the ? issue but others may still cause problems. I suspect that this would be an ideal opportunity to add PowerShell to your CV, for example, a command that's almost bash-like in it's elegance and zen-ness:
PShell> foreach ($item in #("1", "?", "3", "4")) { echo $item }
1
?
3
4
You could switch to FOR /F.
But FOR /F is used to process multiple lines to split them into tokens.
In your case you don't need multiple tokens, you need one loop per item.
That can be done by splitting the items with linefeeds.
I'm using # as item delimiter, but you are free to use any other character
#echo off
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
(set \n=^
%=EMPTY=%
)
set "itemList=the#quick#?#brown#fox"
for %%L in ("!\n!") DO (
FOR /F "delims=" %%x in ("!itemList:#=%%~L!") DO echo - %%x -
)
Output:
- the -
- quick -
- ? -
- brown -
- fox -
I've been coding with batch many years, and I'm suprised to realize this issue until now!
I found another way to deal with this problem. May be somebody prefers it, like me.
In my particularly case, I'm using the FOR LOOP to get some named arguments of the current function. This is what I did:
:SomeFunct
rem Replace ?
set "args=%*"
set "args=%args:?=`%"
rem Iterate args
for %%p in (%args%) do (
for /f "tokens=1,* delims=: " %%a in ("%%~p") do (
rem Get and store values
if /i "%%~a" equ "/a" set "argA=%%~b"
if /i "%%~a" equ "/b" set "argB=%%~b"
if /i "%%~a" equ "/c" set "argC=%%~b"
)
)
rem Restore ?
if defined argA set "argA=%argA:`=?%"
if defined argB set "argB=%argB:`=?%"
if defined argC set "argC=%argC:`=?%"
rem I use the args
rem ...
rem Return
goto:eof
I call the function like this:
rem Calling example
call:SomeFunct "/a:Is there" "/b:a question mark" "/c in the arguments?"
There are a handful of questions on SO that look similar, but I cannot figure out some behaviour and I am looking for help.
Below is a snippet from a batch file I am trying to write which will load in a set of directories and potentially replace letter substitutions with an expanded path, e.g. the properties file might look like:
location1=C:\Test
location2=[m]\Test
Where location1 points to C:\Test and location2 points to C:\Program Files(x86)\MODULE\Test, because [m] is a shorthand to C:\Program Files(x86)\MODULE.
The batch script, to this point, is simply trying to read in the list of file paths and expand/replace the [m].
SET build.dir=%~dp0%
SET progfiles=%PROGRAMFILES(X86)%
IF "%progfiles%"=="" SET progfiles=%ProgramFiles%
SET local.properties=%build.dir%local.properties
SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
FOR /F "tokens=1* delims==" %%i IN (%local.properties%) DO (
SET local.dir=%%j
SET local.dir=!local.dir:[m]=%progfiles%\MODULE!
echo !local.dir!
)
ENDLOCAL
Running this kicks out an error:
\MODULE was unexpected at this time.
If I replace the FOR with the following instead:
set test="[m]\Proj\Dir"
set test=!test:[m]=%progfiles%\MODULE!
echo %test%
I get the desired C:\Program Files(x86)\MODULE\Proj\Dir printed out...so I'm confused why it works fine outside of the FOR loop.
My understanding about delayed expansion is that it 'expands' at runtime...which you get to happen using !! instead of %% wrapped around the variable. Furthermore, as I'm creating the local.dir variable inside the FOR loop scope, I must use delayed expansion in order to access it with the updated value for the iteration.
I feel like the problem is using %progfiles%, like there's some special syntax I need to use in order to make it work but nothing is adding up for me. When I echo %progfiles%, it prints out as C:\Program Files(x86 -- note the missing trailing ).
Any ideas? Thanks
Tested suggestion:
D:\Projects\Test\Build>test
*** "D:\Projects\Test\Build\local.properties"
*** "","C:\Program Files (x86)"
[m]=C:\Program Files (x86)\MODULE
Adding quotes around the whole expression makes it work -- can't use other characters for some reason (like []) -- and since I want to append to the path later, we can safely remove the quotes afterwards:
SET local.dir="!local.dir:[m]=%progfiles%\MODULE!"
SET local.dir=!local.dir:"=!
Test this to see if you can nut out the issue:
The double quotes are to provide robust handling in a system with long file/path names.
The () are unquoted which are a problem in a batch script, when inside a loop.
#echo off
SET "build.dir=%~dp0%"
SET "progfiles=%PROGRAMFILES(X86)%"
IF "%progfiles%"=="" "SET progfiles=%ProgramFiles%"
SET "local.properties=%build.dir%local.properties"
echo *** "%local.properties%"
SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
FOR /F "usebackq tokens=1* delims==" %%i IN ("%local.properties%") DO (
SET "local.dir=%%j"
echo *** "!local.dir!","%progfiles%"
SET "local.dir=!local.dir:[m]=%progfiles%\MODULE!"
echo !local.dir!
)
ENDLOCAL
pause
It has to do with the () characters that end up in your progfiles string. If you take them out, the substitution seems to work fine.
My suggestion is to ditch command for this particular purpose and use one of the other standard tools that Windows comes with. While my personal preference would be Powershell (since it's so much more powerful and expressive), you may just need something quick that you can integrate into existing cmd.exe stuff.
In that case, try the following VBScript file, xlat.vbs:
set arg = wscript.arguments
wscript.echo Replace(arg(0),arg(1),arg(2))
Your batch file then becomes something like, noting the inner for /f which captures the output of the VBS script and assigns it to the variable:
#echo off
SET build.dir=%~dp0%
set progfiles=%PROGRAMFILES(X86)%
if "%progfiles%"=="" set progfiles=%ProgramFiles%
set local.properties=%build.dir%local.properties
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
for /f "tokens=1* delims==" %%i in (%local.properties%) do (
set local.dir=%%j
for /f "delims=" %%x in ('cscript.exe //nologo xlat.vbs "!local.dir!" "[m]" "%progfiles%\MODULE"') do set local.dir=%%x
echo !local.dir!
)
endlocal
Running that, I get the output:
C:\Test
C:\Program Files (x86)\MODULE\Test
which I think is what you were after.
Below is my script. I am trying to look into folders one level below and pick out only those folders, hence the ~-9 which extracts the last 9 chars from the path. But the set var= does not unset the variable because the output comes back with the same folder name repeated # times. Also batch doesn't allow me to do this extract trick directly on %%i, hence the need for the local variable.
How do I clear this variable so that it takes the new value in the next iteration?
#echo off
for /d %%i in (%1\*) do (
set var=%%i
echo %var:~-9%
set "var="
)
http://judago.webs.com/variablecatches.htm has an explanation for my problem. The magic lines were setlocal enabledelayedexpansion and calling var as echo !var:~-9!. ! vs % ...wow! cmd still amazes me.
You found the source of your problem, as well as the solution - delayed expansion.
But using FOR while delayed expansion is enabled can cause problems if any of the filenames contain the ! character. The expansion of the for variable %%i will be corrupted if the value contains ! and delayed expansion is enabled. This is not a frequent problem, but it happens.
The solution is to toggle delayed expansion on and off within the loop
#echo off
setlocal disableDelayedExpansion
for /d %%i in (%1\*) do (
set var=%%i
setlocal enableDelayedExpansion
echo !var:~-9!
endlocal
)
I'm also wondering what you mean by "I am trying to look into folders one level below and pick out only those folders, hence the ~-9 which extracts the last 9 chars from the path". I suspect your are trying to get the name of the child folder, without the leading path information. If that is so, then using the substring operation is not a good solution because the length of folder names varies.
There is a very simple method to get the name of the folder without the leading path info:
for /d %%i in (%1\*) do echo %%~nxi
How would I achieve this:
for i in *.e; do mv $i ${i%-b*.e}.e; done
in a Windows batch file? (It renames files containing "-b" to the part before "-b". Note that this is not necessarily the end of the string! e.g. "file-b-4.e" will become "file.e")
If you really want to do this in batch, this should work
#echo off
setlocal disableDelayedExpansion
for %%F in (*.e) do (
set "var=%%~F"
setlocal enableDelayedExpansion
set "var=!var:-b=.e:!"
for /f "eol=: delims=:" %%A in ("!var!") do (
endlocal
echo ren "%%F" "%%A"
)
)
Edit
The comment by panda-34 alluded to the fact that the original posted code failed if the file name begins with -b. The code above was fixed by incorporating the extension into the replacement string. (thanks panda-34 for alerting me to the problem)
panda-34 also provided an alternate solution that uses command injection with search and replace. The injected command is the REM statement.
The panda-34 solution works as long as the file name does not contain & or ^ characters, but fails if it does.
Below is a modified version of the command injection technique that should work with all valid Windows file names. There are 2 critical mods, 1) make sure the special chars in the file name are always quoted, and 2) do not pass the value as a CALL argument, otherwise ^ will be doubled to ^^.
#echo off
setlocal disableDelayedExpansion
for %%i in (*-b*.e) do (
set old="%%~ni"
call :ren_b
)
exit /b
:ren_b
set v=%old:-b=.e"&rem "%
echo ren "%old:~1,-1%.e" %v%
exit /b
Final Edit (I hope):
As baruch indicates in his comment, the solutions above remove starting with the 1st occurance, whereas the original bash command removes starting with the last occurance.
Below is a version that should be an exact equivalent of the original bash command.
#echo off
setlocal disableDelayedExpansion
set "search=-b"
for %%A in (*%search%*.e) do (
set "old=%%A"
setlocal enableDelayedExpansion
set "new=\_!old:%search%=\_!"
for %%B in ("!new!") do (
endlocal
set "new=%%~pB"
setlocal enableDelayedExpansion
set "new=!new:~2,-1!.e"
echo ren "!old!" "!new:\_=%search%!"
endlocal
)
)
Simple, really
for %%i in (*-b*.e) do call :ren_b %%~ni
goto :eof
:ren_b
set v=%*
set v="%v:-b=.e" ^& rem %
ren "%*.e" %v%
Here's a variant to keep the name till the last -b occurence
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
for %%i in (*-b*.e) do (
set v=%%~ni
set v=!v:-b=\!
for %%j in ("\!v!") do (
set v=%%~pj
set v=!v:~1,-1!
set v=!v:\=-b!
ren "%%i" "!v!.e"
)
)
It will fail for names containing ! and starting with -b.
P.S, Didn't see, dbenham already provided the equivalent solution, probably with more provisions for terminal cases of file names.
Forget it, some convenient things cannot be done in NT scripting. What you are asking here is not possible to my knowledge. And I've written and maintained complex NT scripts bigger than 50 KiB, using all kinds of tricks. The book "Windows NT Shell Scripting" points out many of these, for the same and more see Rob van der Woude's scripting pages.
I reckon you could do part of this, but certainly not in a one-liner due to how variable expansion works in NT scripting. For example you could extract the part of the string that you expect to be -b and check whether it is -b, then extract the other parts and rename from the original name to the one that is comprised of only the extracted parts.
But you'll likely need ten to fifteen lines to achieve that. In that light, consider using a different scripting language for the purpose. Especially if this is a modern Windows version.
I realize this is not the desired answer (i.e. that this is possible and a sample), but cmd.exe is very limited compared to Bash, albeit by far not as limited as some opponents of traditional batch scripting are pointing out.
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.