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.
Long-time listener first-time caller.
I'm trying to use a windows batch script to search for specific strings in files contained in a directory, and classify them with a file name and random value for further processing.
This is what I have put together based on similar posts:
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
for %%a in (C:\Temp\*.txt) do (
set t1=string1-%RANDOM%.txt
set t2=string2-%RANDOM%.txt
find "string1" %%~fa && ren %%~fa %t1%
find "string2" %%~fa && ren %%~fa %t2%
)
If I move the set commands outside the for loop it will work, but I need it to generate a random file name within the loop in case there's multiple files found with 'string1'.
Any help much appreciated!
Thanks.
In cmd, variables are replaced with it value when the block in which they are placed is readed. In your case, your set variables are replaced once, when the for is readed, and changes are not visible because once that replacement is done, there is no more variable replacement. That is the reason for the enabledelayedexpansion, but a change in code is needed
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
for %%a in (C:\Temp\*.txt) do (
set t1=string1-!RANDOM!.txt
set t2=string2-!RANDOM!.txt
find "string1" "%%~fa" && ren "%%~fa" !t1!
find "string2" "%%~fa" && ren "%%~fa" !t2!
)
For delayed expansion of variables, it is necessary to indicate to cmd which of the variables should be replaced in each access. To do it, change % with ! when using the variable. This is not necessary for control variables in for command (your %%a), for which it is assumed.
Be careful, your code does not handle the posibility of duplicate file names. Random means random, not unique. Collisions are possible.
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
I've got this little batch file I'm trying to write for a Windows 7 environment. It's supposed to go through a directory and echo the last four characters of the file names. So far I've got:
#ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL
for /r C:\Users\userName\Desktop\testFolder %%g in (*) do (
Set fileName = %%~ng
echo %fileName:~-4%
)
And all that is echoed out is "~-4" once for each file in testFolder. I can't figure out what's wrong, but then I'm not very well versed in batch files or dos. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.
Environment variable expansion occurs when the command is read, so your %fileName:~-4% is evaulated when the for is read, which is before the Set is performed. Use delayed expansion.
#ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL SETDELAYEDEXPANSION
for /r C:\Users\userName\Desktop\testFolder %%g in (*) do (
Set fileName=%%~ng
echo !fileName:~-4!
)
Note also that spaces are significant in the Set command. With the space, you created a variable called fileName with a trailing space.
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.