How do I get the result of a command in a variable in windows?

Question

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.

Answer 1

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 "!".

@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)

Answer 2

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"

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

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

Answer 5

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

Answer 6

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

Answer 7

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!!

Answer 8

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.

Answer 9

@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%"

Answer 10

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=!
    )
)

Answer 11

@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'

Answer 12

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.

Answer 13

Please refer to this http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490982.aspx which explains what you can do with command output.