Batch Script - Reading from Files

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Reading of files in a Batch Script is done via using the FOR loop command to go through each line which is defined in the file that needs to be read. Since there is a no direct command to read text from a file into a variable, the ‘for’ loop needs to be used to serve this purpose.

Let’s look at an example on how this can be achieved.

Example

@echo off
FOR /F "tokens=* delims=" %%x in (new.txt) DO echo %%x

The delims parameter is used to break up the text in the file into different tokens or words. Each word or token is then stored in the variable x. For each word which is read from the file, an echo is done to print the word to the console output.

Output

If you consider the new.txt file which has been considered in previous examples, you might get the following output when the above program is run.

"This is the directory listing of C:\ Drive"
Volume in drive C is Windows8_OS
Volume Serial Number is E41C-6F43

Directory of C:\

12/22/2015 09:02 PM   <DIR>       01 - Music
06/14/2015 10:31 AM   <DIR>       02 - Videos
09/12/2015 06:23 AM   <DIR>       03 - Pictures
12/17/2015 12:19 AM   <DIR>       04 - Software
12/15/2015 11:06 PM   <DIR>       05 - Studies
12/20/2014 09:09 AM   <DIR>       06 - Future
12/20/2014 09:07 AM   <DIR>       07 - Fitness
09/19/2015 09:56 AM   <DIR>       08 - Tracking
10/19/2015 10:28 PM   <DIR>       09 – Misc

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