Windows batch command s to read first line from text file

Question

How can I read the first line from a text file using a Windows batch file  Since the file is large I only want to deal with the first line

User · Answer

You might give this a try    echo off  for  f   a in  sample txt  do     echo   a   exit  b     edit Or  say you have four columns of data and want from the 5th row down to the bottom  try this    echo off  for  f  skip 4 tokens 1-4    a in  junkl txt  do     echo   a   b   c   d

User · Answer

for  f  delims    a in  downing txt  do echo  a  amp  pause gt nul  Prints 1st line  then waits for user to press a key to print next line  After printing required lines  press Ctrl C to stop    Ross Presser  This method prints lines only  not prepend line numbers

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Uh you guys     C   gt findstr  n   c  boot ini   findstr  1   1  boot loader   C   gt findstr  n   c  boot ini   findstr  3   3 default multi 0 disk 0 rdisk 0 partition 1  WINNT  C   gt

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The problem with the EXIT  B solutions  when more realistically inside a batch file as just one part of it is the following  There is no subsequent processing within the said batch file after the EXIT  B  Usually there is much more to batches than just the one  limited task   To counter that problem    echo off  amp  setlocal enableextensions enabledelayedexpansion set myfile  C   D TEST My test file txt set FirstLine  for  f  delims     i in   type   myfile      do     if not defined FirstLine set FirstLine   i  echo FirstLine  FirstLine  endlocal  amp  goto  EOF    However  the so-called poison characters will still be a problem    More on the subject of getting a particular line with batch commands      How do I get the n th  the first and the last line of a text file     http   www netikka net tsneti info tscmd023 htm    Added 28-Aug-2012  One can also have    echo off  amp  setlocal enableextensions set myfile  C   D TEST My test file txt for  f  tokens   delims     a in      type   myfile      do       set FirstLine   a amp  goto  ExitForLoop    ExitForLoop echo FirstLine  FirstLine  endlocal  amp  goto  EOF

User · Answer

Here is a workaround using powershell   powershell  Get-Content file txt  0     You can easily read also a range of lines with powershell  Get-Content file txt  0  3    If you need to set a variable inside a batch script as the first line of file txt you may use   for  f  usebackq delims     a in   powershell   Get-Content file txt   0    do  set  head   a

User · Answer

uh  imo this is much simpler      set  p texte  lt  file txt     echo  texte

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Slightly building upon the answers of other people   Now allowing you to specify the file you want to read from and the variable you want the result put into    echo off for  f  delims     x in   2  do   set  1   x exit  b     This means you can use the above like this  assuming you called it getline bat   c   gt  dir  gt  test-file c   gt  getline variable test-file c   gt  set variable   variable  Volume in drive C has no label

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Thanks to thetalkingwalnut with answer Windows batch command s  to read first line from text file I came up with the following solution    echo off for  f  delims     a in   type sample txt   do   echo   a exit  b

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One liner  useful for stdout redirect with        for  f   i in   type yourfile txt   do  echo   i  amp  exit

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To cicle a file  file1 txt  file1 1  txt  file1 2  txt  etc     START WAIT C  LAERCIO DELPHI CICLADOR dprCiclador exe C  LAERCIUM Ciclavel txt  rem set p ciclo  lt  C  LAERCIUM Ciclavel txt  set p ciclo  lt  C  LAERCIUM Ciclavel txt  rem echo  ciclo   echo  ciclo    And it s running

User · Answer

Try this   echo off setlocal enableextensions enabledelayedexpansion set firstLine 1 for  f  delims     i in  yourfilename txt  do       if  firstLine   1 echo   i     set firstLine 0   endlocal

User · Answer

Another way  setlocal enabledelayedexpansion  echo off for  f  delims     i in  filename txt  do   if 1  1   set first line   i echo  first line  goto  eof

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Note  the batch file approaches will be limited to the line limit for the DOS command processor - see What is the command line length limit     So if trying to process a file that has any lines more that 8192 characters the script will just skip them as the value can t be held

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Here s a general-purpose batch file to print the top n lines from a file like the GNU head utility  instead of just a single line    echo off  if   1        goto usage if   2        goto usage  call  print head  1  2 goto  eof  REM REM print head REM Prints the first non-blank  1 lines in the file  2  REM  print head setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion set  a counter 0  for  f   usebackq  eol       delims       a in   2  do           if   counter      1  goto  eof         echo   a         set  a counter  1    goto  eof   usage echo Usage  head bat COUNT FILENAME   For example   Z   gt head 1  test file c    this is line 1  Z   gt head 3  test file c    this is line 1     this is line 2 line 3 right here   It does not currently count blank lines   It is also subject to the batch-file line-length restriction of 8 KB

[batch-file] Windows batch command(s) to read first line from text file

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