Batch files How to read a file

Question

How you can read a file  text or binary  from a batch file  There is a way to read it in a binary mode or text mode

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You can use the for command   FOR  F  eol   tokens 2 3  delims      i in  myfile txt  do  echo  i  j  k   Type  for      at the command prompt  Also  you can parse ini files

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The FOR-LOOP generally works  but there are some issues  The FOR doesn t accept empty lines and lines with more than  8190 are problematic  The expansion works only reliable  if the delayed expansion is disabled   Detection of CR LF versus single LF seems also a little bit complicated  Also NUL characters are problematic  as a FOR-Loop immediatly cancels the reading   Direct binary reading seems therefore nearly impossible   The problem with empty lines can be solved with a trick  Prefix each line with a line number  using the findstr command  and after reading  remove the prefix    echo off SETLOCAL DisableDelayedExpansion FOR  F  usebackq delims     a in    findstr  n    t txt    do       set  var   a      SETLOCAL EnableDelayedExpansion     set  var  var           echo  var      ENDLOCAL     Toggling between enable and disabled delayed expansion is neccessary for the safe working with strings  like   or    xy z  That s because the line set  var   a  is only safe with DisabledDelayedExpansion  else exclamation marks are removed and the carets are used as  secondary  escape characters and they are removed too  But using the variable var is only safe with EnabledDelayedExpansion  as even a call   var   will fail with content like   amp   amp    EDIT  Added set p variant There is a second way of reading a file with set  p  the only disadvantages are that it is limited to  1024 characters per line and it removes control characters at the line end  But the advantage is  you didn t need the delayed toggling and it s easier to store values in variables   echo off setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion set  file   1   for  f  delims     n in   find  c  v     file    do set  len   n  set  len  len          lt  file      for  l   l in  1 1  len   do       set  line       set  p  line       echo  line          For reading it  binary  into a hex-representation You could look at SO  converting a binary file to HEX representation using batch file

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Corrected code    setlocal enabledelayedexpansion for  f  usebackq eol  tokens   delims      a in   findstr  n       name with spaces txt    do       set line   a     set  line  line           echo  line    endlocal pause

User · Answer

The FOR-LOOP generally works  but there are some issues  The FOR doesn t accept empty lines and lines with more than  8190 are problematic  The expansion works only reliable  if the delayed expansion is disabled   Detection of CR LF versus single LF seems also a little bit complicated  Also NUL characters are problematic  as a FOR-Loop immediatly cancels the reading   Direct binary reading seems therefore nearly impossible   The problem with empty lines can be solved with a trick  Prefix each line with a line number  using the findstr command  and after reading  remove the prefix    echo off SETLOCAL DisableDelayedExpansion FOR  F  usebackq delims     a in    findstr  n    t txt    do       set  var   a      SETLOCAL EnableDelayedExpansion     set  var  var           echo  var      ENDLOCAL     Toggling between enable and disabled delayed expansion is neccessary for the safe working with strings  like   or    xy z  That s because the line set  var   a  is only safe with DisabledDelayedExpansion  else exclamation marks are removed and the carets are used as  secondary  escape characters and they are removed too  But using the variable var is only safe with EnabledDelayedExpansion  as even a call   var   will fail with content like   amp   amp    EDIT  Added set p variant There is a second way of reading a file with set  p  the only disadvantages are that it is limited to  1024 characters per line and it removes control characters at the line end  But the advantage is  you didn t need the delayed toggling and it s easier to store values in variables   echo off setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion set  file   1   for  f  delims     n in   find  c  v     file    do set  len   n  set  len  len          lt  file      for  l   l in  1 1  len   do       set  line       set  p  line       echo  line          For reading it  binary  into a hex-representation You could look at SO  converting a binary file to HEX representation using batch file

User · Answer

Well theres a lot of different ways but if you only want to DISPLAY the text and not STORE it anywhere then you just use  findstr  v  randomtextthatnoonewilluse  filename txt

User · Answer

Well theres a lot of different ways but if you only want to DISPLAY the text and not STORE it anywhere then you just use  findstr  v  randomtextthatnoonewilluse  filename txt

User · Answer

Corrected code    setlocal enabledelayedexpansion for  f  usebackq eol  tokens   delims      a in   findstr  n       name with spaces txt    do       set line   a     set  line  line           echo  line    endlocal pause

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A code that displays the contents of the myfile txt file on the screen  set  filecontent  0 type  filename      filecontent  echo  filecontent

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Under NT-style cmd exe  you can loop through the lines of a text file with  FOR  F  i IN  file txt  DO  echo  i   Type  help for  on the command prompt for more information   don t know if that works in whatever  DOS  you are using

User · Answer

One very easy way to do it is use the following command   set  p mytextfile  lt   pathtotextfile  textfile txt echo  mytextfile    This will only display the first line of text in a text file  The other way you can do it is use the following command   type  pathtotextfile  textfile txt   This will put all the data in the text file on the screen  Hope this helps

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A code that displays the contents of the myfile txt file on the screen  set  filecontent  0 type  filename      filecontent  echo  filecontent

User · Answer

Under NT-style cmd exe  you can loop through the lines of a text file with  FOR  F  i IN  file txt  DO  echo  i   Type  help for  on the command prompt for more information   don t know if that works in whatever  DOS  you are using

User · Answer

One very easy way to do it is use the following command   set  p mytextfile  lt   pathtotextfile  textfile txt echo  mytextfile    This will only display the first line of text in a text file  The other way you can do it is use the following command   type  pathtotextfile  textfile txt   This will put all the data in the text file on the screen  Hope this helps

User · Answer

Under NT-style cmd exe  you can loop through the lines of a text file with  FOR  F  i IN  file txt  DO  echo  i   Type  help for  on the command prompt for more information   don t know if that works in whatever  DOS  you are using

User · Answer

Under NT-style cmd exe  you can loop through the lines of a text file with  FOR  F  i IN  file txt  DO  echo  i   Type  help for  on the command prompt for more information   don t know if that works in whatever  DOS  you are using

[file] Batch files: How to read a file?

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