To read lines from a file, in a batch file, you do :
for /f %%a in (myfile.txt) do (
:: do stuff...
)
Now suppose you file is in
Found it.
for /f %%a in ('type "C:\Program Files\myfolder\myfile.txt"') do (
echo Deleting: %%a
)
Don't even ask me why that works.
The documentation you get when you type help for
tells you what to do if you have a path with spaces.
For file names that contain spaces, you need to quote the filenames with double quotes. In order to use double quotes in this manner, you also need to use the usebackq option, otherwise the double quotes will be interpreted as defining a literal string to parse.
By default, the syntax of FOR /F
is the following.
FOR /F ["options"] %variable IN (file-set) DO command [command-parameters]
FOR /F ["options"] %variable IN ("string") DO command [command-parameters]
FOR /F ["options"] %variable IN ('command') DO command [command-parameters]
This syntax shows why your type
workaround works. Because the single quotes say to execute the type
command and loop over its output. When you add the usebackq
option, the syntax changes to this:
FOR /F ["options"] %variable IN (file-set) DO command [command-parameters]
FOR /F ["options"] %variable IN ('string') DO command [command-parameters]
FOR /F ["options"] %variable IN (`command`) DO command [command-parameters]
Now you double quote paths to files, single-quote literal strings, and put backticks (grave accents) around commands to execute.
So you want to do this:
for /f "usebackq" %%a in ("C:\Program Files\myfolder\myfile.txt") do (
echo %%a
)
Just sharing the below code, hoping that somebody will get benefited.
The below code take both the path having spaces and also if the read lines has spaces, it wont cause any issue of the characters after space is missing;
FOR /f "tokens=* delims=," %%a in ('type "C:\Progrem File\My Program"') do ( echo %%a )