Question

String concatenation in Windows batch file?

Asked by: dpichett

If I have environmental variables like:

X3DESTDIR="C:\Destination Folder"
X4DESTFIL="\zzzfiles\SubfolderLevel2\SubfolderLevel3\file 553.zzz"

how can the two strings be concatenated.  The use of percent signs like

SET FINAL_DEST=%DESTDIR%%DESTFIL%

results in extranneous quotes, i.e.

FINAL_DEST="C:\Destination Folder""\zzzfiles\SubfolderLevel2\SubfolderLevel3\file 553.zzz"

How to eliminate the extra quotes ("") in the middle of the result?

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Asked On
2004-09-17 at 07:12:44ID21135047
Tags

batch

,

string

,

file

,

concatenation

Topic

MS DOS

Participating Experts
4
Points
125
Comments
11

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Answers

 

by: ZylochPosted on 2004-09-17 at 07:16:15ID: 12084667

Hi dpichett,

You could always do

SET FINAL_DEST=%DESTDIR%%DESTFIL:~1%

even though I'm not sure why you need the quotes...

Regards,
Zyloch

 

by: ZylochPosted on 2004-09-17 at 07:16:45ID: 12084672

Ahh, wait, disregard that last not sure why you need the quotes statement, I understand

Regards...

 

by: dpichettPosted on 2004-09-17 at 07:24:35ID: 12084754

Hello Zyloch,

Thanks for the feedback, I don't want to strip out the quotes, I need the quotes to handle spaces in the folder and directory names.  

Essentially, I'm looking for syntax that will take the strings "John Q." and " Public" and produce "John Q. Public", rather than "John Q."" Public"

Further thoughts?

 

by: SteveGTRPosted on 2004-09-17 at 07:50:19ID: 12085046

Give this a try:

@echo off

setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

set X3DESTDIR="C:\Destination Folder"
set X4DESTFIL="\zzzfiles\SubfolderLevel2\SubfolderLevel3\file 553.zzz"

call :CONCAT FINAL_DEST %X3DESTDIR% %X4DESTFIL%

echo FINAL_DEST=%FINAL_DEST%

goto :EOF

:CONCAT

if "%~1"=="" goto :EOF

set EnvName=%~1
set %EnvName%=

:GETPARM

shift

if "%~1"=="" goto :EOF

set %EnvName%=!%EnvName%!%~1

goto GETPARM

Good Luck,
Steve

 

by: brianadkinsPosted on 2004-09-17 at 08:15:28ID: 12085339



set DESTDIR="C:\Destination Folder"
set DESTFIL="\zzzfiles\SubfolderLevel2\SubfolderLevel3\file 553.zzz"
set FINAL_DEST="%DESTDIR:"=%%DESTFIL:"=%"

-Brian

 

by: For-SoftPosted on 2004-09-17 at 08:31:04ID: 12085551

I'm not sure if it will work, but the simplest way to delete "" substring is to repalace it with empty string.
This solution reqiures Windows 2000/XP.

SET FINAL_DEST=%DESTDIR%%DESTFIL%
SET FINAL_DEST=%FINAL_DEST:""=%

 

by: brianadkinsPosted on 2004-09-17 at 08:32:38ID: 12085567

Similarly, my solution above removes all the quotes from both variables, slaps the variables together, and then puts quotes back on the ends.

-Brian

 

by: For-SoftPosted on 2004-09-17 at 08:33:43ID: 12085581

The advantage of this solution is:
If the FINAL_DEST variable does not have any "" substring it will do nothing. If "" substring exists it will be deleted.

 

by: SteveGTRPosted on 2004-09-17 at 08:35:51ID: 12085608

My solution is overkill, but I love overkill :)

Also, I neglected to slap quotes back on results:

call :CONCAT FINAL_DEST %X3DESTDIR% %X4DESTFIL%

set FINAL_DEST="%FINAL_DEST%"

echo FINAL_DEST=%FINAL_DEST%

 

by: For-SoftPosted on 2004-09-17 at 08:41:25ID: 12085691

After some thought Brian's idea has an advantage also. If only one string has quotes it will work fine. Mine will do nothing.

Better is to have quotes always, than not to have quotes when needed.

 

by: dpichettPosted on 2004-09-17 at 08:45:24ID: 12085743

thanks to all.

ultimately, stripping out all quotes (including valid and extranneous) and then re-including quotes around any subsequent use of the variable looks like it will do the trick.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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