How do I escape ampersands in batch files

Question

How do I escape ampersands in a batch file  or from the  Windows command line  in order to use the start command to  open web pages with ampersands in the URL   Double quotes will not work with start  this starts a new  command-line window instead   Update 1  Wael Dalloul s solution works  In addition  if  there are URL encoded characters  e g  space is encoded as   20  in the URL and it is in a batch file then     must be  encoded as       This is not the case in the example   Example  from the command line  CMD EXE    start http   www google com search client opera amp rls en amp q escape ampersand amp sourceid opera amp ie utf-8 amp oe utf-8   will result in   http   www google com search client opera    being opened in the default browser and these errors in the command line window    rls  is not recognized as an internal or external command  operable program or batch file   q  is not recognized as an internal or external command  operable program or batch file   sourceid  is not recognized as an internal or external command  operable program or batch file   ie  is not recognized as an internal or external command  operable program or batch file   oe  is not recognized as an internal or external command  operable program or batch file    Platform  Windows XP 64 bit SP2

User · Accepted Answer

From a cmd     amp  is escaped like this    amp   based on  Wael Dalloul s answer    does not need to be escaped   An example   start http   www google com search client opera  amp rls en  amp q escape ampersand 20and 20percentage in cmd  amp sourceid opera  amp ie utf-8  amp oe utf-8   From a batch file    amp  is escaped like this    amp   based on  Wael Dalloul s answer    is escaped like this      based on the OPs update    An example   start http   www google com search client opera  amp rls en  amp q escape ampersand  20and  20percentage in batch file  amp sourceid opera  amp ie utf-8  amp oe utf-8

User · Answer

explorer  http   www google com search client opera amp rls

User · Answer

You can enclose it in quotes  if you supply a dummy first argument   Note that you need to supply a dummy first argument in this case  as start will treat the first argument as a title for the new console windows  if it is quoted  So the following should work  and does here    start     http   www google com search client opera amp rls en amp q escape ampersand amp sourceid opera amp ie utf-8 amp oe utf-8

User · Answer

amp  is used to separate commands  Therefore you can use   to escape the  amp

User · Answer

If you need to echo a string that contains an ampersand  quotes won t help  because you would see them on the output as well  In such a case  use for   for  a in   First  amp  Last   do echo   a      in a batch script   for   a in   First  amp  Last   do echo    a   or  for   a in     1   do echo    a

User · Answer

If you have spaces in the name of the file and you have a character you need to escape   You can use single AND double quotes to avoid any misnomers in the command   scp    files name with spaces internal folder with spaces  text  amp  files stored txt       The   character escapes the quotes otherwise

User · Answer

For special characters like   amp   you can surround the entire expression with quotation marks set  quot url https   url retry true amp w majority quot

User · Answer

The command  echo this   amp  that   works as expected  outputing  this  amp  that   The command  echo this   amp  that  gt  tmp   also works  writing the string to file  tmp    However  before a pipe  echo this   amp  that   clip   the   is interpreted completely differently   It tries to write the output of the two commands  echo this  and  that  to the pipe   The echo will work then  that  will give an error   Saying  echo this   amp  echo that   clip   will put the strings  this  and  that  on the clipboard   Without the     echo this  amp  echo that   clip   the first echo will write to the console and only the second echo s output will be piped to clip  similarly for    tmp  redirection    So  when output is being redirected  the   does not quote the  amp  but instead causes it to be applied before the redirection rather than after   To pipe an  amp   you have to quote it twice  echo this     amp  that   clip   If you put the string in a variable  set m this   amp  that   then  set m   will output  m this  amp  that   but the obvious  echo  m    fails because  after Windows substitutes the variable  resulting in  echo this  amp  that   it parses this as a new command and tries to execute  that    In a batch file  you can use delayed expansion   setlocal enableDelayedExpansion echo  m    To output to a pipe  we have to replace all  amp s in the variable value with   amp   which we can do with the  VAR FROM TO  syntax   echo  m   amp      amp     clip   On the command line   cmd  v  enables delayed expansion   cmd  v  c echo  m    This works even when writing to a pipe  cmd  v  c echo  m    clip   Simple

[windows] How do I escape ampersands in batch files?

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