Question

DOS Substring

Asked by: computerstreber

I am trying to find the correct syntax to do a substring function in DOS. I have a variable name, %var% that I want to determine if the 5 character is a number or letter. For example:

SET VAR=THISISAVARIABLE

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Asked On
2009-10-20 at 10:52:50ID24827859
Tags

DOS

Topic

DOS and Windows

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
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Answers

 

by: leewPosted on 2009-10-20 at 11:15:17ID: 25616874

if %var:~x,1% LEQ 9 echo Number

where x is the character to start at  (the 1 is the number of characters to take) - for example,
%comspec% on my computer is ComSpec=C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe

If I run
if %comspec:~18,1% leq 9 (echo Number) Else (echo Not Number)
I get
Number (Character 18 is less than or equal to 9 - specifically, it's 2 - it starts counting at 0 - see below)

but if I run
if %comspec:~15,1% leq 9 (echo Number) Else (echo Not Number)
I get
Not Number (Character 15 is e).

NOTE: this is FLAWED.  Because you cannot say if leq 9 AND geq 0 on the same line and symbols would be less than or equal to 9 (such as the \ character) - you'd have to nest:

if %comspec:~10,1% leq 9 (
  if %comspec:~10,1% geq 0 (
     echo Number
  ) Else (
     echo Not Number
  )
) Else (
  echo Not Number
)

c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe
          1         2
012345678901234567890123456
                                              
1:
2:
3:

Select allOpen in new window

 

by: computerstreberPosted on 2009-10-20 at 11:57:46ID: 31643533

Great explanation! Worked perfectly.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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