Batch file quotes around path exe uses the \ to escape the next character, EDIT: but it seems that it only escapes a quote character. bat withtqt. You will then either enclose %location% in quotes or omit the quotes as required. 4. Well this worked, still don't know why the variables won't work the other way around: N: cd movies forfiles /C "cmd /c if @isdir==TRUE mklink /d M:\Movies\@file\ @path" forfiles /C "cmd /c if @isdir==FALSE mklink M:\Movies\@fname @path" It's still important that I figure it out the first way so I can automate this task. You could then embed your double quoted query in the string or keep feeding it from a file. Community Bot. If you don’t escape the inner double-quotes around the data, such as: REG ADD HKCR\boxfile\shell\command /ve /t REG_SZ /d "d:\my projects\runx64. "C:\Realtime Data Export Tool\ExportTool\BatchFiles\ExportData. bat, remove the quotes from the command line command, and it works fine. forfiles /P "C:\root" /M "*. out you wrap all the file/executable paths in quotes, and then the entire command in another set of quotes. In the second case, using PATH, the PATH variable is set to C:\BAT;C:\DOS, in upper case, no matter how it was specified. exe (not PowerShell) to interpret. sql -o D:\output. I've looked up a lot of posts about this, and there is no explanation for this. I am using the LibreOffice command line to convert RTF documents to PDF. Clearing Environment Variables. I've experimented with this, and found out that it relies on REM command blocking parsing of the shell's meta-characters (&|()<>), and the fact that CMD shell does not allow newlines as part of arguments. txt-file is created (and read from in a later step) cd %path% This line, cd's the path where the files are located. bat file to run on Win 10 Pro 64-bit, the append phrase [source] >> "c:\Users\My UserName with space\OneDrive\Desktop\document. As we are running it through batch file we need to set the target application class file too. bat gcc. Moderator: DosItHelp. Create another text file (one time step only) containing string "Set "Use copy command to append the file mentioned in step2 with the file created in step3 and create a batch file with a predefined name. But - if your question is about files that already exist then probably the easiest way is to use your editor. txt" There are also a few examples that work better using quotes, like When you need to pass an argument, such as a path that has spaces, you generally need to put double quotes around it to have the application treat it as a single I was having an issue using a path that had a folder name with spaces in it inside a batch file i was calling with the paths quoted. a directory path) and later need to remove the quotes to accommodate additional manipulation, handle the incoming parameter as %~1 instead of %1. 1. ) to remove surrounding quotes around batch file arguments. Fix by always putting it in double quotes. Commented Feb 22, 2012 at 14:47. REM which. I am trying to write a batch file that will determine if a PC has a specific MS Hotfix installed, and is running XP SP2, not SP3. So we need to know what the users intent is. I am trying to use robocopy but am unable to make it work because of spaces in the directory names. The PATH variable can be set in two ways: SET PATH=c:\bat;c:\dos. ) path Starting directory. For instance, if you are using the value as an argument of some command, you will likely need to put the quotes around it: External programs typically take care of removing enclosing double-quotes around parameters, but, as noted, in batch files you have to do it yourself (e. exe REM shows REM gcc. Since it's being expanded in an if condition, those parentheses are being interpreted as flow control. REM If found, it shows the file's full path. ) on that path, and then escape the quotes (backslash for cmd shell): i have batch file for call the tester app , how to call batch file in powershell. In your case: SVN add C:\"Documents and Settings"\username\svn\*. Use: -c"CMD /C DEL ^0x22@FILE^0x22" to put extra double quotes around the file. bat" causes the a new command line window to show up, but the code in the . txt" /C "cmd /C forfiles /P @path\. exe' \"c:\log data\today. When you drag and drop something in a batch file, normally, it wouldn't put quotes, so everything's fine. How can one surround each new line with a ' and a ' (quotes). dump -l". Then, quotes surrounding path\\pr I was having an issue using a path that had a folder name with spaces in it inside a batch file i was calling with the paths quoted. @echo off forfiles -p "%1" -s -m %2 -d -%3 -c "cmd /c del /q "@path"" My best guess is, that CMD now directly interprets one of the two paths in quotations literally, instead of creating a . Not sure about Opera - the quotes around the executable name are required, but the argument, maybe, maybe not. – davidtgq And double quotes around all paths must be used if one path contains a space character. "Files\Adobe": The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect. Obviously you would need to fix the path to your batch script :-) Once you have made the change, the filename will automatically be quoted every time your script is invoked via a file command "parameter in quotes" "Path to application\app. Suddenly there was a networkdrive called "Data for Analysation", and yeah with the double quotes it works proper! This allows the batch file to work as expected, even if the user opens a command prompt (perhaps with current working directory of C:\Windows\System32), and manually enters the full path/filename of the batch file at the prompt. exe %1" The environment variable or expandable string is expanded or resolved to the folder path automatically, as shown in the following image. exe is found: D:\GMU\MinGW2\bin\gcc. Share. The problem here is the lack of quotation marks around your -ArgumentList file path. I need to create a . Commented Mar 29, 2018 at 18:43. 2009 at 11:58 am Reply. Any Omit the quotation marks in the above command for the path of the DLL files, e. 2. As you're passing the path via an argument to cmd. There should either (a) not be any quotes in the MS-Windows PATH environmental variable (PATH command) or (b) there should be quotes surrounding the entire expression following the (SET command). File2: '/home/user/some type of file with spaces' '/home/user/another type of file with spaces' Let's say, the user drag and drops an file into my batch file, which causes that the batch file copies the file to a certain directory. I can rename this bat file to Hello_World. reg. When calling. 176. The single quotes pass to the robocopy command and don't work because it looks for a folder with the name 'application data' with the single quotes as part of the name. I found that putting quotes around just one part of the location works. Like: copy base. The data value is a file path and must have outer quotes like so: "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\Library\Custom_AddIn. Note that path-separators in windows are \ not /. How to search and replace a string in environment variable PATH? 1. Do not use additional double quotes for strings with spaces. Please read the help for start. "%%f" – Squashman. using space in path for copying files using batch script. txt" is NOT working because An easy and simple solution is to store the path without the quotes, like this: SET "location=C:\My dir\Sub dir\Folder with a lot of spaces\file. So YES it's bullet-proof, but only when the script is called from Reference Start - Start a program, command or batch script (opens in a new window. How to include spaces in forfiles. Always use the set syntax set "VARIABLE=Value"! From a batch file (cmd. set variable01="C:\Program Files (x86)\SomeProgram\Subfolder" set variable02="${macro}" set variable01=%variable01:"=% set variable02=%variable02:"=% set variable03="" if Trying to escape the quotes for the string= argument or both exe path and string arg: Outcome A (still breaks the quoting for the exe path, gives:) '<Part of path to exe>' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. However, given that most command-line utilities support \", \" is easier to remember. Copying a file using xcopy path invalid. You could put quotes around the exe file only "curl", but that should not be needed unless you include the path to curl and the path includes spaces or poison characters. bat file is not executed. xlam" using this code: should strip the quotes before they are recorded, if that's what your question is. Simple Test: batch file: sqlcmd -E -S PGCDWDEV02 -d ANALYTICS -I -i D:\extractH\sqlquery. exe") as the path had a whitespace in it :) Just to be really sure it works on every The failure scenario for using a relative path like this is when the batch file is run manually, or from another batch file (or program). exe, then you need to quote the path (double quotes around it), use the call operator (& or . I am adding using double quotes in start "pro gra mme. bat" "DNCORR" "SYSTEM" "SYSTEM123" "SYNC" "TEST" Share. However, with the quotes (which are necessary due to the spaces), it will not work. I also tried double quotes, apostrophe instead of quotes, backslash before each quotenothing works. START "C:\Program Files\MyAppPath\MyApp. But it could be possible if you know how the receiver function gets the parameters. Then you could tranfer the parameter via an escaped delayed variable, the variable will be expanded not in the call, it will be expanded just in the function. txt" This is the path, where the (temporary) file-list . I have attached the . The outer quotes around the /C command are removed prior to execution, leaving only the quotes around your exe path. I have a powershell file that replaces an IP in a config file. You do not encapsulate the path with quotes in the set command, you only need to do that when you attempt to use the variable in a command. Putting quotes around it now treats it as a string unless you use the usebackq option to read the file. E. Removing the quotes worked! Thanks a lot! It seems incredibly strange to me that putting quotes around a file path (a standard procedure) would break a separate argument to the command in such a non-obvious way. An example of such an application is Windows Explorer. Single Quotes or No quotes in file paths in Unix shells. When I execute the following in the Command Prompt it works without any issue. Any file path you pass to the batch file will need to be Another variant is to nest another forfiles in the body of the initial one, because forfiles removes (non-escaped) double-quotes within given strings like the command line after /C:. answered Batch File: FOR /F doesn't work if path has spaces. exe behaves differently when you use & (which I never heard about before). exe" > C:\temp\FolderWithNoSpaces\SomeProgram. If you use only letters, numbers, underscores, and hyphens (and a period before the extension to identify the file type), your scripting life will become To launch a batch script with spaces in the script Path and other parameters, all requiring quotes: CMD /k " "c:\batch files\test. 3 // quotes not required around folder with no spaces cmd. (comma delimited). the problem is the following command: copy "%1" "C:\path\to\it" The problem here is the quotes around%1. 6. bat file that I The simple tilde syntax works only for removing quotation marks around the command line parameters being passed into the batch files. exe" "parameter in quotes" But there are applications which require quotes in the middle of an argument string. I have placed quotation marks around the directories themselves, and they still do not Clearly, something about the path being in a variable inside a FOR loop is the issue here because when the variable expands, no matter what quotation I put around the path, the FOR loop thinks it is multiple commands and uses the first one. After further investigations it comes out that the batch file should be modified adding quotes around @path to allow spaces: @echo off forfiles -p %1 -s -m %2 -d -%3 -c "cmd /c del /q "@path"" The path parameter has to be quoted too as follows because of spaces: In a . In my case i didn't tried to run a batch, but a program in the "Program Files" folder (batch shall terminate after launching the program). Removing one of the quotes in var example in your pretty print/split the path answer demonstrates that issue. bat then the argument would equal C:\Users\Oliver\Desktop\, also you can use the command set cpath=%~dp0 && set cpath=%cpath:~0,-1% and use the %cpath% variable to remove the No doubt a boring old school trick for the Powershell users among you, so, like, over batch files but handy in case of emergency: If you supply a quoted parameter to a batch file (e. Type “call /?” for You just need to add quotes around the path and file name of your batch filekeep the quotes around your parameters if you need them. reg query "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Updates\Windows XP\SP3\KB932823-v3">nul Share. Depends a little on quite how many files you have to process - which you haven't specified. exe. I am trying to execute command from Windows CMD. Thanks and +1 :-) – Jan. bat scripts? I am new to scripting. Worked for me, thanks! \Program' is not recognized as an internal or external The code in the question would read the file line by line as long as their are no spaces in the file name. 6 posts • Page 1 of I do drag and drop on pretty much all the batch files I create for my fellow employees. conf')IP to replace; new IP; Since we are dependent on using a batch file for our service to process the task, I wrote a batch script that simply takes three parameters and posts that to the powershell script. Searching easy way to remove double quotes around parameters? Discussion forum for all Windows batch related topics. TABLES I need to surround them with ' ' to ensure that my batch scripts will work. cmd /c start "C:\path\to\Hello World. Like dbenham said, it's seems impossible to escape a space in a parameter without quotes. exe" Since path contain spaces I would need to place quotes around it in order to specify correct location. This way the value will be stored with no quotes and the SET statement will still be protected from the effect of certain special characters. xlam" But even when using escape characters to keep the quotes, the closest I've been able to get is this (missing first quote): C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\Library\Custom_AddIn. html" This way the value will be In your batch file add quotes around the parameters that can include spaces. Batch path variable with space - how to escape the double quotes? 3. exe /C "C:\Program Files\Somewhere\SomeProgram. C:/path to uninstall file/uninstall. ** using a batch file. Follow What is the proper placement of quotations in windows cmd . The following syntax is required to open an Explorer window from within a batch file with current directory displayed in window. Then again, I'm no batch file guru and maybe cmd. exe REM REM Note: Filename extension is significant in the search. For example if the file path was C:\Users\Oliver\Desktop\example. Syntax START "title" [/D path] [options] "command" [parameters] In your case "pro gra mme. exe or even: ""C:\Program Files (x86)\Foobar\bin"\my tool with spaces. Is there anyway to check if the variable begins with a C: and if it does add a quote to the beginning and the end of the string? If it begins with anything other than C: then it doesn't matter, its only if it has a file path @jeb , As stated in the answer of your linked question, it cannot accept newlines as part of the argument. Unfortunately, this is not very well documented by MS, although they do state that if quotes are used, they will be included in the value of the variable (Windows XP I followed the step mentioned in How to write a full path in a batch file having a folder name with space? and added double quotes for the folder with space in its name but the issue is that the application is also considering the folder name with quotes and hence unable to find the given folder. cd "C:\User\Spaced Name\Spaced FileName. exe Where there are no quotes in a file path that causes the call function to fail. exe" is being interpreted by the cmd shell as the title. cd If you are calling your batch file from cmd. However, an odd number of quotes in PATH requires that either a human makes this correction or a script tries to find out where missing quote should be inserted in PATH by verifying which directories in PATH really exist. My earlier attempts to use -Command or the file path/name by itself failed in cases where the path to the extracted You put quotes around every path except for the one that you need it too. The inner FOR loop with option /F assigns each non-empty line to the loop variable J and runs one more ECHO to just output the non I want to modify a shortcut to use a different CPU affinity, e. bat + withQt. parameters The parameters passed to the command. ) Syntax. /M @file /C \"cmd /C echo @relpath\"" Or alternatively (the doubled inner forfiles is intentional, this works around a bug -- see this post): However, I found that I had to put quotation marks around it ("%~dp0\bin\Iris. You can read about how CMD process quotes in the help. In the first case, using SET, the PATH variable is set to c:\bat;c:\dos, in lower case, as specified. I unfortunately don’t know the proper placement of quotations for this to run properly. But, this method works only for the command If you are calling your batch file from cmd. Follow edited May 23, 2017 at 11:51. 5. I just used this trick to remove quotes and re add In a . 2 Batch file moving files with spaces in their name. Improve this answer. ) on that path, and then escape the Command (Batch) File - use of quotes around directory names. The batch file appears to run successfully (everything in the batch file is accomplished, the robocopy logs look fine), but the result in Task Scheduler is always 0x1. Here is an example that deletes I tried with old 8-character names like \applic~1\ but that didn't work. To set a variable, and in a batch file, use the following command: Notes: %~1 Expand %1 removing any surrounding quotes (") In a batch file replace %i with %%i and %~i with %%~i; Further Reading. Q&A for work Extra quotes for path with the spaces. There are some other characters that are allowed within paths and have special meanings in batch files (like ^, &, (, )); also those become protected when using quotation marks. txt" is NOT working because of a space in a folder name even though I surround the whole thing with "" quote marks. exe" to counter the spaces. The tilde removes the surrounding quotes. set PATH="c:\app\bin";c:\app\runtime;%PATH% Copying the DLL files to the directory where the exe is located; The weird part about solution 2 is, that it does not change anyhing if I add quotation marks to the first path, or if I change the order of the paths. It's as simple as adding -I for quoted identifier. I tried the following in the task setup, without result: Put the full I'm trying to make an automated program that copies the Windows Vista Sidebar to the directory it needs to go, but the program says "Invalid Path" and does not copy any files. "C:\Program The problem is the parentheses in variable01's value. powershell, question. instead Takeown and Icacls recognize the spaced path as 2 different path. You can use the following command instead: If you put "" around all paths in general, you are not going to run into problems with those characters. It's pretty easy if you can use the full path in your batch files - simply add quotes around the path. * Although this uses quotation marks, the important thing to notice is that the asterisks are outside the quotation marks, so Here, %1 specifies the first command line parameter passed on to the Batch file, %2 specifies the second command line parameter, and so on. Path with spaces in for loop of a batch file. . Don't use spaces or other characters that are special to the command interpreter in path names (directory or file names). As shown below. txt file, as it should / did before, without quatotions. Set a path variable with spaces in the path in a Windows . Registry: find and replace part of a path in a batch file. It only handles parameters till %9. The first ECHO outputs the argument string being hopefully the file name of a text file always enclosed in double quotes independent on file name passed to the batch file without or with surrounding double quotes. , %~1 to remove enclosing double-quotes from the 1st parameter) and, sadly, there is no direct way that I know of to get echo to print a variable value faithfully without the enclosing double As AndyM says, you need quotes around paths that contain spaces - otherwise, the path C:\Program Files\Bulk Rename Utility will be interpreted as launching the program C:\Program Files\Bulk with the two arguments Rename and Utility. exe), you must \-escape embedded " instances (even though PowerShell-internally it is ` (the backtick) that serves as the escape character):As wOxxOm points out in a comment on the question, in Windows PowerShell using """ to embed a single " is also an option. txt sql file: SELECT "TABLE_NAME" FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA. In batch a caret escapes the next character, but only outside of quotes (there is only one exception for escaping an exclamation mark inside of quotes). Use %~1 (et. An A-Z Index of the Windows CMD command line - An excellent reference for all things Windows cmd line related. This means file paths with spaces must be wrapped with double quotation marks. exe, it must be properly formatted for cmd. exe" which I doubt will parse correctly. But I was mistaken. Use quotes (") around key path. bat ==> Spaces in file paths can be used by using two sets of quotes, one set for CMD. Here, it did. e. The parameter %~ removes all pairs of double quotes around the string: @echo off &setlocal set "Variable="my var"" echo Variable: %Variable% call :concat %Variable% goto :eof :concat echo concat %%1: %1 set "NewVar=%~1" echo concat NewVar: %newvar% goto :eof endlocal Output is: The outer quotes should not be needed, nor should the quotes around "curl -v -o latest. You can use %~dp0, d means the drive only, p means the path only, 0 is the argument for the full filename of the batch file. SET xyz=%~1 Above batch file code will set xyz to whatever value is being passed as first paramter stripping away the leading and trailing quotations (if present). dll" Share. 5 set path="C:\Users\example\Documents\folder" This is the path, where the files are meant to be read from set output="C:\Users\example\Documents\z filelist\filelist. cmd file or batch file. Adding quotes around the value for the SET operation is easy enough: a question alone helps me solve my current problem (how to strip quotes from a batch file argument). START "title" [/D path] [options] "command" [parameters] Key: title Text for the CMD window title bar (required. EXE and one for SchTasks. 1 1 1 silver badge. Learn more about Collectives Teams. When your variable represents only a path to a directory and you want to append file names there, then the "no quotes" thing is even more important, otherwise you'd be building paths like "C:\Program Files (x86)\Foobar\bin"\mytool. I simply do not understand the "('heroku pgbackups:url')" syntax at all. If you want to clear a value set via setx, and/or Short answer: Take the whole command line as you would type in command prompt, and put quotes around it. but when you run it in a batch file the variables don't work right unless you put: forfiles. xml\"" @echo off REM This bat searches a file in PATH list to see whether a file can be found. command The command, batch file or executable program to run. File1: /home/user/some type of file with spaces /home/user/another type of file with spaces To. Don't escape any internal quotes, just put an extra quote on the beginning and the end of the command line. – I am trying to create a batch file that copies files from one path to another, using several xcopy commands. but using that, the path still doesnt have any quotation. So, at least around %1. I have not had this issue with other batch files that copy to a similar directory. I have very limited knowledge with it. – DimeCadmium. The powershell takes in three parameters: file name ('C:\Program Files (x86)\app\app. Commented Apr 6, 2023 at In batch itself there are different rules for quotes and escapes than for reg. Here is my command. exe" arg1 arg2 argN the path typed with quotes around is supposed to be the "Title" parameter by START command. cmd /c "timeout 3 > nul & start /min C:\Users\Me\Documents\Path with extra spaces\myapp. 0. I just used this trick to remove quotes and re add them around the paths i wanted. Use filename as variable when replacing text in files. Open up a cmd prompt and read the help for the CALL Put double quotes around the path that has spaces like this: REGSVR32 "E:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\xyz. trusted content and collaborate around the technologies you use most. For example : E:\Program Files\Adobe\ The result will : "E:\Program": The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect. The following is not quite correct - I thought the file associations would put quotes around the file name like drag and drop does. : cmd /c "start /affinity 7 path\\program" It works fine, until path or program contains spaces. g. or: PATH c:\bat;c:\dos. Example: As of Eclipse IDE Set all build path entries to the Class Path. al. The outer quotes for CMD need to be double quotes; the inner quotes can be single quotes or escaped double quotes: SCHTASKS /Create /tr "'c:\program files\internet explorer\iexplorer. If the value was set via SET instead of SETX, then you could just spawn a new terminal instance to be in an environment with fresh value. Programming & Development. bat file to run an application (Transaction Pro) to automatically import transactions into QuickBooks. set sees the whole thing as a string and doesn't care about the spaces, whereas the robocopy command will see spaces (when %foo% is expanded) as parameter separators. cmd" "Parameter 1 with space" "Parameter2 with space" " Double Simply by adding quotes around the path, the issue would be solved. Hot Network Questions Is asking for a feedback on a paper from a professor grounds for co-authorship? A dominoes puzzle I created Plot XY data from a list of XYZ values with Z value determining the colour Thank you for your answers. 3: Use windows power shell or some third party tool to find and replace quotes in that file. I am trying to copy 3 directories: My Documents, My Music and My Pictures to 'C:\test-backup' but want the end result to be Having trouble with double quotes around file paths. xeomysch qrv uohtn eehc hwhn yhfyiu tsu jphzq tioad bwej qseo ojmzs btjyi fchia dczd