How to replace substrings in windows batch file

Question

Can anyone tell me using batch file in windows    how to read from a file and replace string bath from file containing bath Abath Bbath XYZbathABC with string hello so that the output is like hello Ahello Bhello XYZhelloABC

User · Answer

If you have Ruby for Windows   C   gt more file bath Abath Bbath XYZbathABC  C   gt ruby -pne     gsub   bath    hello     file hello Ahello Bhello XYZhelloABC

User · Answer

To avoid blank line skipping just replace this   echo  modified   gt  gt   OUTTEXTFILE    with this   echo  modified   gt  gt   OUTTEXTFILE

User · Answer

To avoid blank line skipping  give readability in conf file  I combine aflat and jeb answer  here  to something like this    echo off setlocal enabledelayedexpansion set INTEXTFILE test txt set OUTTEXTFILE test out txt set SEARCHTEXT bath set REPLACETEXT hello set OUTPUTLINE   for  f  tokens 1   delims       A in     findstr  n     INTEXTFILE     do      SET string   A    for  f  delims   tokens 1      a in    string    do set  string   b     if    string                  echo  gt  gt  OUTTEXTFILE       else         SET modified  string  SEARCHTEXT   REPLACETEXT         echo  modified   gt  gt   OUTTEXTFILE        del  INTEXTFILE  rename  OUTTEXTFILE   INTEXTFILE

User · Answer

Expanding from Andriy M  and yes you can do this from a file  even one with multiple lines   echo off setlocal EnableExtensions EnableDelayedExpansion set  INTEXTFILE test txt  set  OUTTEXTFILE test out txt  set  SEARCHTEXT bath  set  REPLACETEXT hello   for  f  delims     A in   type   INTEXTFILE     do       set  string   A      set  modified  string  SEARCHTEXT   REPLACETEXT        echo  modified  gt  gt   OUTTEXTFILE      del   INTEXTFILE   rename   OUTTEXTFILE     INTEXTFILE   endlocal   EDIT  Thanks David Nelson  I have updated the script so it doesn t have the hard coded values anymore

User · Answer

To avoid problems with the batch parser  e g  exclamation point   look at Problem with search and replace batch file   Following modification of aflat s script will include special characters like exclamation points    echo off setlocal DisableDelayedExpansion set INTEXTFILE test txt set OUTTEXTFILE test out txt set SEARCHTEXT bath set REPLACETEXT hello set OUTPUTLINE   for  f  tokens 1   delims       A in     type  INTEXTFILE     do       SET string   A     setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion     SET modified  string  SEARCHTEXT   REPLACETEXT         gt  gt   OUTTEXTFILE  echo  modified      endlocal   del  INTEXTFILE  rename  OUTTEXTFILE   INTEXTFILE

User · Answer

I have made a function for that  you only call it in a batch program within needing to code more  The working is basically the same as the others  as it s the best way to do it  Here s the link where I have that function

User · Answer

SET string bath Abath Bbath XYZbathABC SET modified  string bath hello  ECHO  string  ECHO  modified    EDIT  Didn t see at first that you wanted the replacement to be preceded by reading the string from a file   Well  with a batch file you don t have much facility of working on files  In this particular case  you d have to read a line  perform the replacement  then output the modified line  and then    What then  If you need to replace all the ocurrences of  bath  in all the file  then you ll have to use a loop    ECHO OFF SETLOCAL DISABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION FOR  F   L IN  file txt  DO     SET  line   L    SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION   ECHO  line bath hello    ENDLOCAL   ENDLOCAL   You can add a redirection to a file     ECHO  line bath hello  gt  gt file2 txt   Or you can apply the redirection to the batch file  It must be a different file   EDIT 2  Added proper toggling of delayed expansion for correct processing of some characters that have special meaning with batch script syntax  like      et al   Thanks  jeb

[batch-file] How to replace substrings in windows batch file

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