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RBarryYoung
Asked: 2013-01-16 13:38:51 +0800 CST

FOR works at prompt, but not in script file?

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As part of a task that I am working on for a customer, I need to make some modifications to the enterprise logon script. Windows command-line is definitely not my area of expertise, but I am doing OK with most of it. However, I am running into the following inconsistent behavior, that I cannot figure out.

The following commands:

Set TMP=
For /f "tokens=1,2,3 delims=:" %A in ('ipconfig ^| Find "Default Gateway" ^| Findstr/N "."') do (If not defined TMP  Set TMP=%~C)

When executed at the command prompt (a windows 7 CMD.EXE window), work as expected and TMP gets set with the IP address of my default gateway. However, if I execute the exact same commands from a CMD file, in the same window, it fails with the following output (Echo On):

>Set TMP=
~C) was unexpected at this time.

>For /f "tokens=1,2,3 delims=:" ~C)

I have tried both CALL and running the script directly. I have tried it both with and without usebackq, and with and without the parenthesis after the DO, with the same results every time: it works interactively, but not from a script in the same session.

What the heck is going on here and how can I fix it?

windows

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Here is a part of help for cmd output:

    To use the FOR command in a batch program, specify %%variable instead
of %variable.  Variable names are case sensitive, so %i is different
from %I.
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