this one's a bit difficult to explain, but I'll do my best.
I'm passing a list of directories into a batch file via a string array, which is created in Java and then passed into the .bat using Runtime.getRuntime().exec(commands). The trouble I am having is in regards to accessing the commands array, the size of which may vary from execution to execution. For example, during one run, "Commands" may contain the following:
{"cmd.exe", "/C", "Start", "program.bat", "stringA", "stringB", "stringC"}
The first four elements are used to call the batch file, so only strings A, B, and C are passed into the batch file (program.bat) as parameters. However, on the next run, "commands" may look like this:
{"cmd.exe", "/C", "Start", "program.bat", "stringA", "stringB", "stringC", stringD, stringE}
As you can see, there are two more strings added to the parameters list. My question is this: In my batch file I have this:
::Get stringA (param 1)
set stringA=%1
::Get stringB (param 2)
set stringB=%2
::Get stringC (param 3)
set stringC=%3
This takes the three string parameters (from the first "commands" array) and sets local variables to whatever values are passed in to the corresponding parameters. I am wondering if there is a way to determine the number of parameters (from the second "commands" array, for example) from within the batch file, and set/create the proper number of local variables accordingly. I focus primarily on Java, so batch files are still fairly new to me. Any suggestions will be very much appreciated, as I've been trying to figure this one out for a while on my own with no success.
#echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
set argCount=0
for %%x in (%*) do (
set /A argCount+=1
set "argVec[!argCount!]=%%~x"
)
echo Number of processed arguments: %argCount%
for /L %%i in (1,1,%argCount%) do echo %%i- "!argVec[%%i]!"
For example:
C:> test One "This is | the & second one" Third
Number of processed arguments: 3
1- "One"
2- "This is | the & second one"
3- "Third"
Batch-Script - Iterate through arguments
As stated here:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/14298769/955143
You can read by %1 to %9, and use SHIFT to delete the first element from the array, an then renummerate they to new numbers.
For instance, the %2 becomes %1, and the 10th element becomes the 9th, and you can acess it by %9.
Since the read value become a empty string you have reached the end of the array
You can write a loop (with goto or for) to reade the %1 value, and use SHIFT to rotate the 2nd element to the first position, and check if it isn't empty, them repeat the process.
Related
I have a batch file which is calling another batch file. batch file 1 is parsing 5 parameters to batch file 2
When I parse the parameters from batch file 1 to batch file 2, it parses correctly but when I assigned those parsed parameters to use them in batch file 2, it breaks.
batch file 1:
ECHO
SET sql=SELECT MAX("Date") FROM SQ_TEST."Sample - Superstore Ran";
SET pref=W
SET num=0
SET day=Friday
SET config=SampleSuperStore.txt
CALL Z:\XXX\RunTableauRefreshAutomatic.bat %sql% %pref% %num% %day% %config%
batch file 2:
CALL C:\XXX\anaconda3\Scripts\activate.bat
SET sql=%~1
SET pref=%~2
SET num=%~3
SET day=%~4
SET config=%~5
C:\XXX\anaconda3\python.exe Z:\XXX\pMainAutomaticDB.py %sql% %pref% %num% %day% %config%
PAUSE
Response from batch file 2:
Z:\XXX>CALL
C:\XXX\anaconda3\Scripts\activate.bat
(base) Z:\XXX>SET sql=SELECT
(base) Z:\XXX>SET
pref=MAX("Date")
(base) Z:\XXX>SET num=FROM
(base) Z:\XXX>SET
day=SQ_TEST."Sample - Superstore Ran"
(base) Z:\XXX>SET config=W
(base)
Z:\XXX>C:\XXX\anaconda3\python.exe Z:\XXX\pMainAutomaticDB.py
SELECT MAX("Date") FROM DL_SQ_TEST."Sample - Superstore Ran" W
(base) Z:\XXX>PAUSE Press any
key to continue . . .
Update: When I remove the double quotes in sql, it works as expected but I need them in it.
Additionally I tried using ^ but the batch file 2 still breaks it differently
#echo off
setlocal
SET "sql=SELECT MAX("Date") FROM SQ_TEST.""Sample - Superstore Ran"";"
call :otherbatch "%sql%" two three
goto :eof
:otherbatch
#echo off
set "var=%~1"
set "var=%var:""="%"
echo one :%var%
echo two :%~2
echo thre:%~3
goto :eof
(it works the same whether calling a separate batch file or a subroutine, so I worked with the latter to show the principle.)
The trick is to ensure the parts with spaces (or other poisonous characters) are properly quoted.
Sadly, this involves some thinking, counting and trying. I see no safe way to automate this (besides a lot of code).
For this special string
SELECT MAX("Date") FROM SQ_TEST."Sample - Superstore Ran";
the string "%sql%" becomes:
"SELECT MAX("Date") FROM SQ_TEST."Sample - Superstore Ran";"
SiiiiiiiiiiiEooooSiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiEoooooooooooooooooooooooSiE
The line below shows, whether a part of the string is inside or outside of proper quoting with Start and End of quoting.
The next step is to ensure each SPACE (or any other delimiter) is quoted (inside) by adding quotes where needed (not around the spaces themselves, but around the substrings that contains them, using the positions of already present quotes).
This changes the string to :
"SELECT MAX("Date") FROM SQ_TEST.""Sample - Superstore Ran"";"
SiiiiiiiiiiiEooooSiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiESiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiESoE
Now every space is properly quoted (and you can see, it's difficult as other "unrelated" parts may change their inside/outside status). So it can be passed as a single parameter.
Of course that means, at the receiving side there are some superfluent quotes, which have to be deleted. We can easily (at least for this example) do that by replacing each "" with ":
set "var=%~1"
set "var=%var:""=%"
Note: that's very specific to the string to process, so I tried to explain step by step, what's to be done. You'll have to rethink the whole process for each specific string and I'm sure there are combinations where this approach would be useless.
You have potentially more problems than just spaces!
Poison characters like &, |, >, and < are another problem when passing parameters to a CALLed script. If the desired value is &"&" then it is impossible to pass that value as a literal string without escaping as the unquoted ^&"&" or as a quoted "&"^&"". But escaping dynamic strings is difficult / totally impractical. And sometimes a value must pass through multiple CALLs, each one needing its own round of escaping.
The situation is even worse when passing a caret - It is impossible to pass ^"^". You can double the unquoted ^, but the quoted "^" is a problem because the CALL command doubles quoted ^, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to prevent it. for example CALL ECHO ^^"^" yields ^"^^"!
For anyone doing any advanced scripting, one of the first tricks to learn is to pass values by reference instead of as literals. The calling script stores the value in a variable, and passes the name of the variable to the CALLed script. The CALLed script then uses delayed expansion to access the value. All the nasty batch problems are solved very simply :-)
modified batch file 1:
ECHO
SET sql=SELECT MAX("Date") FROM SQ_TEST."Sample - Superstore Ran";
SET pref=W
SET num=0
SET day=Friday
SET config=SampleSuperStore.txt
CALL Z:\XXX\RunTableauRefreshAutomatic.bat sql %pref% %num% %day% %config%
modified batch file 2:
setlocal enableDelayedExpansion
CALL C:\XXX\anaconda3\Scripts\activate.bat
SET sql=!%~1!
SET pref=%~2
SET num=%~3
SET day=%~4
SET config=%~5
:: I doubt this next line works properly.
C:\XXX\anaconda3\python.exe Z:\XXX\pMainAutomaticDB.py !sql! %pref% %num% %day% %config%
:: You probably need to change your python script to read the sql value from an environment
:: variable so you can then pass the value by reference just as we did with batch.
::
:: C:\XXX\anaconda3\python.exe Z:\XXX\pMainAutomaticDB.py sql %pref% %num% %day% %config%
::
:: Otherwise you will need to escape your quote literals - I believe python uses `\"`
PAUSE
One additional thing to be wary of - String literals containing ! will be corrupted if accessed while delayed expansion is enabled. So in addition to all the "problem" cases listed above, you also should pass by reference if the value may contain !.
Note that your python script also has potential issues with parameters containing " literals. I discuss that in the comments in modified batch 2.
The Problem
In a main batch file, values are pulled from a .txt file (and SET as values of variables within this batch file). These values may each contain % characters.
These are read from the .txt file with no issues. However, when a variable with a value containing a % character is passed to a second batch file, the second batch file interprets any % characters as a variable expansion. (Note: There is no control over the second batch file.)
Example
echo %PERCENTVARIABLE%
Output: I%LOVE%PERCENT%CHARACTERS%
When passed to a second file and then echo'ed, would (probably) become IPERCENT, as it interprets %LOVE% and %CHARACTERS% as unset variables.
Research
I found the syntax to find and replace elements within a string in a batch file, as I thought I could potentially replace a % character with %% in order to escape it. However I cannot get it to work.
The syntax is -
set string=This is my string to work with.
set string=%string:work=play%
echo %string%
Where the output would then be This is my string to play with..
Questions
Is it possible to escape % characters using the find and replace syntax
in a variable? (If not, is there another way?)
Is it advisable to do so? (Could using these escape characters cause any issue in the second batch file which (as mentioned above) we would have no control over?)
Is there another way to handle this issue, if the above is not possible?
There are no simple rules that can be applied in all situations.
There are a few issues that make working with string literals in parameters difficult:
Poison characters like &, |, etc. must be escaped or quoted. Escaping is difficult because it can be confusing as to how many times to escape. So the recommendation is to usually quote the string.
Token delimiters like <space>, <tab>, =, ; and , cannot be included in a parameter value unless it is quoted.
A CALL to a script will double any quoted % characters, and there is no way to prevent this. Executing a script without CALL will not double the % characters. But if a script calls another script and expects control to be returned, then CALL must be used.
So we have a catch-22: On the one hand, we want to quote parameters to protect against poison characters and spaces (token delimiters). But to protect percents we don't want to quote.
The only reliable method to reliably pass string literals without concern of value corruption is to pass them by reference via environment variables.
The value to be passed should be stored in an environment value. Quotes and/or escapes and/or percent doubling is used to get the necessary characters in the value, but it is very manageable.
The name of the variable is passed in as a parameter.
The script accesses the value via delayed expansion. For example, if the first parameter is the name of a variable containing the value, then it is accessed as !%1!. Delayed expansion must be enabled before that syntax can be used - simply issue setlocal enableDelayedExpansion.
The beauty of delayed expansion is you never have to worry about corruption of poison characters, spaces, or percents when the variable is expanded.
Here is an example that shows how the following string literal can be passed to a subroutine
"<%|,;^> This & that!" & the other thing! <%|,;^>
#echo off
setlocal enableDelayedExpansion
set "parm1="^<%%^|,;^^^^^> This ^& that^^!" & the other thing^! <%%|,;^^^>"
echo The value before CALL is !parm1!
call :test parm1
exit /b
:test
echo The value after CALL is !%1!
-- OUTPUT --
The value before CALL is "<%|,;^> This & that!" & the other thing! <%|,;^>
The value after CALL is "<%|,;^> This & that!" & the other thing! <%|,;^>
But you state that you have no control over the 2nd called script. So the above elegant solution won't work for you.
If you were to show the code of the 2nd script, and show exactly what value you were trying to pass, then I might be able to give a solution that would work in that isolated situation. But there are some values that simply cannot be passed unless delayed expansion is used with variable names. (Actually, another option is to put the value in a file and read the value from the file, but that also requires change to your 2nd script)
may be...?
input.txt
I%LOVE%PERCENT%CHARACTERS%
batch1.bat
#echo off
setlocal enableDelayedExpansion
set/P var=<input.txt
echo(In batch 1 var content: %var%
set "var=!var:%%=%%%%!"
call batch2.bat "%var%"
endlocal
exit/B
batch2.bat
#echo off
set "var=%~1"
echo(In batch 2 var content: %var%
exit/B
I don't really have a very deep understanding of what I'm doing here but the thing is I cant make it work for just certain file type
FOR %%2 in (*.mp4,*.avi,*mkv) do set fname=%%~n2
FOR %%1 in (*.srt,*.sub) do (
attrib -r %1
PING 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 1000 > NUL
cscript "NewReplace.vbs" %1
ren %1 "%fname%".srt
)
So what it DOES is that this is located into %appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo and when I Right Click-Send to-MyBatch it searches for a MP4, AVI, MKV in the clicked file directory, copies it's name to my file and appends .srt.
What I WANT IT to do is only accept .srt and .sub files, and when it copies the name to append the original extension not always .srt.
Fundamentally, FOR %%2... and similar are errors.
The metavariable (loop-control variable - you've attempted to use 2) must be alphabets and that alphabetic character is case-sensitive (one of the few placs in batch that exhibits case-sensitivity.)
When referencing the value within a for loop, use %%x (where x is your chosen metavariable.)
%n where n is 1..9 means the parameter n provided to the routine, hence %1 means 'the first parameter given to this routine,' so thisroutine something somethingelse would see something as parameter 1 and somethingelse as parameter 2, referenced by %1 and %2 respectively.
Your first line, when corrected, will assign the name part of each filename found in turn from the selected masks (*.mp4,*.avi,*mkv) and the name part of the very last such name found will be assigned to the variable fname.
Similarly, your second for loop will look for all .srt and .sub files, remove any read-only attribute, wait, run your cscript with the entire name (name+extension) of the *.srt or *.sub found, then attempt to rename that file to the name found in the first loop.srt - because that is what you've specified.
The upshot of all this is that the first loop will locate zzz.mkv (if that is the last filename found in the first loop) and assign zzz to fname.
The second loop will rename the first .srt or .sub file found to zzz.srt and since that filename now exists, will fail to rename all of the remaining .srt and .sub files - including zzz.srt.
That's what your code, when the metavariables are fixed, should try to do. It probably isn't what you want it to do, but you've not provided an example, and you've not clearly explained what to do if there are multiple (*.mp4,*.avi,*mkv) files or what your cscript is supposed to do when provided with a filename, or what you want to do about srt and sub files
I've recently been trying to make a program to simply store text to a file for later viewing, storing it as a .rar file for security against those who don't understand how to extract the text from the .rar (i.e. the less "techy" people)...
I have, however, encountered an error in the program that results in the <word> not expected at this time followed by the .exe closing when I input add/<word> <word>... (i.e. any multi-word string with spaces in between the words [add/<word>, however, does function properly]).
Is there a special rule that must be followed for storing multi-word strings to a .rar or a file in general (I do, however, know that there is a rule for creating/renaming folders/directories)?
The Program Segment:
:command
cls
set /p journal=<journal.rar
echo %journal%
echo.
set /p command=What would you like to do?
cls
if %command%==exit exit
if %command%==help goto help
if %command%==delete echo START; > journal.rar
if %command:~0,4%==add/ echo "%journal%""%command:~4%;" > journal.rar
if %command:~0,5%==edit/ echo %journal:%command:~5%=%;" > journal.rar
goto command
Excuse me. Your question is not clear. There are several confusing points in it, like "followed by the .exe closing" (which .exe is closing?), and the fact that your question is NOT related to .rar files in any way, nor to "storing multi-word strings". However, I can see the following points in it:
When a variable value is expanded with percent signs this way: %command% you must be aware that the variable is first expanded and then the resulting line is parsed. This mean that the value of the variable may introduce errors in the line. For example, in this line: if %command%==exit exit, if the value of command variable is add/one two three, then the line that is parsed is this: if add/one two three==exit exit that, of course, issue an error! (type if /? for further details).
The way to avoid this problem is enclosing both the variable and the comparison value in quotes; this way, if the value have several words with spaces, the whole value is grouped in the IF command for comparison purposes: if "%command%" == "exit" exit. This must be done in every IF command that use the value of the variable.
In the following line:
if %command:~0,5%==edit/ echo %journal:%command:~5%=%;" > journal.rar
you must be aware that the line is parsed from left to right; this means that you can not nest a %variable% expansion inside another one. The way to solve this problem is first complete a %normal% variable expansion, and then a !delayed! variable expansion that will take the previous expanded value. To do that, insert this line at beginning of your program:
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
and change previous line by this one:
if "%command:~0,5%" == "edit/" echo !journal:%command:~5%=!;" > journal.rar
For further details, type set /? and carefully read the sections about "delayed expansion".
Here is a sample that can accept multiple words:
set "command="
set /p "command=What would you like to do? "
cls
if /i "%command%"=="have lunch" goto :food
Within my batch file I have a variable that contains a file path:
SET VAR1=C:\Folder1\Folder2\File.txt
I would like to extract on the directory structure and retreive:
C:\Folder1\Folder2\
I have read threads like this where I need to use %~dp0 where 0 I believe is passed as a parameter. I have tried %~dpVAR1 but that doesn't work. How can I get the output I'm looking for, but with a variable containing the file path?
Also, to make matters difficult, I have to perform all of this within an IF condition which means that once the variable is declared, I will need to refer to it with ! instead of % (I have declared setlocal enableextensions enabledelayedexpansion at the beginning of my script to allow for this).
Any help is much appreciated!
Thanks!
Andrew
You are attempting to use parameter expansion syntax on an environment variable - that cannot work. But it is relatively easy to do what you want.
Using a CALL (relatively slow):
(...
call :getPath "!var!" var
...
)
exit /b
:getPath
set "%2=%~dp1"
exit /b
Using FOR, assuming the variable does not contain any wildcards (fast)
(...
for %%F in ("!var!") do set "var=%%~dpF"
...
)
Using FOR, if the variable may contain wildcards (also fast)
(...
for /f "delims=" %%F in ("!var!") do set "var=%%~dpF"
...
)
Note 1: If the variable does not contain the full path, then all the solutions will attempt to resolve the name into an absolute path and will return the full absolute path. For example, if var contains foobar\test.txt, then the solutions will include the full path to the current directory, even if the file is not found. Something like c:\pathToCurrentDirectory\foobar\.
Note 2: All solutions above will remove all quotes from the path.
Note 3: A path could include the ! character, which will cause problems when expanding %~dp1 or %%~dpF because you have delayed expansion enabled. The delayed expansion will corrupt both ^ and ! if the value contains !. There is a solution that involves protecting both ! and ^. Here is a demonstration applied to the last solution above. The protection requires normal expansion, and since you are within a code block, it requires at least one CALL. It could be done without a subroutine, but it is easier with a subroutine. The subroutine assumes the variable is named var.
(...
call :getPath
...
)
exit /b
:getPath
set "var=!var:"=!"
set "var=!var:^=^^^^!"
set "var=%var:!=^^^!%" !
for /f "delims=" %%F in ("!var!") do set "var=%%~dpF" !
exit /b
I do believe (once again) many questions are on the same topic (string constraints, or splitting strings).
Instead of giving you the whole code, I'm going to give you a template and explain why %~dpVAR! didn't work.
Firstly, why %~dpVAR! did't work.
Before I get into modifiers, let's discuss parameters. You may know that batch files can parse parameters to each other. These parameters can be called by using a single percent sign (%) in front of the numbers 0-9. As far as I'm aware (someone might have made a way for more to be parsed), only 9 parameters can be parsed. You may think that is wrong (there's 10 parameters right?). Parameters 1-9 are parsed to the batch file (or function within one), %0 is the file path of the batch file (or function name). If you look, %~dp0 shares some (not really) resemblance to %0. This will be discussed below.
Secondly, the term %~dp0 has modifiers in it. Modifiers are things that modify variables (only in the case of parameters and those declared in for loops, you know the ones with double percent signs like %%i) and parameters. The modifier d expands the parameter to a drive letter only while p expands the parameter to a path only. You may think that these would contradict themselves, but parameters can be combined to create extremely wacky formats.
So, as you can see, you attempt at replacing 0 with your variable name failed because it's not specified for those sort of things.
Now, on to the template.
You can constrain variables (and put them into other variables) like this:
set variable=!variable:~offset,amount!
Don't worry if that seems confusing, I'm about to explain the components.
Firstly, notice that there is no /a switch. This is because this is not a mathematical function (don't really know why I added this). So, before I explain it, here's an example of what it would do to a variable name numbers that has the value of 0123456789.
set numbers=!numbers:~5,1!
By using that line of code, numbers would now equal 5. This is because it is recreating the variable with a smaller version of the original value (gee this is hard to explain). As you can see, there is a 5 where offset was on the template above. This is because it is skipping the first 5 characters and setting the variable as the next amount, or 1 character (I really hope you're getting this).
So basically, it sets a variable as a shorter value of a different (or the same) variable determined by the offset and the amount of characters to contain in it.
I really hope this helps because I probably wouldn't understand a word of this.
Can someone redirect this poor guy to a link explaining this better (I tried, ok!)?
Complete example of extracting paths from variable:
#echo off
set /p Fullpath="Specify full path: "
call :getPath %Fullpath% filename folder
echo %filename%
echo %folder%
pause
exit /b
:getPath
set "%2=%~nx1"
set "%3=%~dp1"
exit /b
Would this work:
SET VAR1=C:\Folder1\Folder2\File.txt
echo %var1%
Where Echo is the name of your exe.
%CD% may work as well: Echo %CD%