Command Prompt with Delayed Expansion Problems

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Allan_Bo_J=F8rgensen?=]

Hi,

I'm using W2K SP4 and I'm trying to pass an argument to a program from a
batch-file, that runs in a command prompt with delayed expansion
activated (with /V). The problem is that I wish to have one of these
parameters contain an exclamation point, but I can not figure out how to
do this. I tried with a caret before it and with a double exclamation
point, since this would seem logical from how I understand that the
percent character is treated. It just seems to get "filtered away" no
matter what.

The weird thing is that I can do this directly from the command line
with no problems - it's just inside a batch file that it fails.

You can reproduce the problem simply by making a small bat-file (I'll
call it testset.bat) containing just @SET AA=a!b, and then running

testset & set AA

from the command line. When you use delayed expansion this gives AA=ab
as output, whereas not using delayed expansion gives AA=a!b as output.
I'd very much like to know how to make it give AA=a!b with delayed
expansion ON.

ANY idea would be welcome - thanks in advance,

Allan Bo Jørgensen

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hi,

I'm using W2K SP4 and I'm trying to pass an argument to a program from a
batch-file, that runs in a command prompt with delayed expansion
activated (with /V). The problem is that I wish to have one of these
parameters contain an exclamation point, but I can not figure out how to
do this. I tried with a caret before it and with a double exclamation
point, since this would seem logical from how I understand that the
percent character is treated. It just seems to get "filtered away" no
matter what.

The weird thing is that I can do this directly from the command line
with no problems - it's just inside a batch file that it fails.

You can reproduce the problem simply by making a small bat-file (I'll
call it testset.bat) containing just @SET AA=a!b, and then running

testset & set AA

from the command line. When you use delayed expansion this gives AA=ab
as output, whereas not using delayed expansion gives AA=a!b as output.
I'd very much like to know how to make it give AA=a!b with delayed
expansion ON.

ANY idea would be welcome - thanks in advance,

Allan Bo Jørgensen

You can usually avoid delayed expansion by placing your
code into a subroutine inside the batch file. Post your code
here if you need further details.

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Allan_Bo_J=F8rgensen?=]

You can usually avoid delayed expansion by placing your
code into a subroutine inside the batch file. Post your code
here if you need further details.

Basically all I want it to do is this:

...\tools\texts.exe Param1 Param2 Param3 Param!WithExclamation

The batch file contains LOTS of other stuff, and some of that requires
delayed expansion to work. As a dirty trick I've placed the line above
in its own batch-file in the same directory as the main batch file like
this (named copyTexts.bat)

%1\..\tools\texts.exe Param1 Param2 Param3 Param!WithExclamation

and then I call it with

cmd /vff /c %CD%\copytexts.bat %CD%

This does NOTHING to improve readability and maintenance. It does work,
however If I understood you correctly, there's a better way?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Basically all I want it to do is this:

..\tools\texts.exe Param1 Param2 Param3 Param!WithExclamation

The batch file contains LOTS of other stuff, and some of that requires
delayed expansion to work. As a dirty trick I've placed the line above
in its own batch-file in the same directory as the main batch file like
this (named copyTexts.bat)

%1\..\tools\texts.exe Param1 Param2 Param3 Param!WithExclamation

and then I call it with

cmd /vff /c %CD%\copytexts.bat %CD%

This does NOTHING to improve readability and maintenance. It does work,
however If I understood you correctly, there's a better way?

Let's have an example where delayed expansion is mandatory!