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raoulsson
Asked: 2009-08-29 07:27:39 +0800 CST

Evaluating expressions in windows batch script

  • 772

This one could turn out as the dumbest question ever, as I am probably missing out the obvious. Anyway, here it is: Can you evaluate expressions in a batch script. For example, I want to add two numbers and print the result:

echo 4+2

This will just print "4+2", not "6". Maybe I am taking batch scripting on windows a little bit too far...

Thanks!

windows scripting batch

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    This way:

    Set /a 4+2

    Or to store it in a variable for later:

    Set /a foo = 4+2
echo %foo%

    And to answer your last line, there is a good chance that you may be pushing batch a little further than intended. The Windows Script host is available on your machine and would allow VBScript or JScript. Also if you are going to learn something new anyway I would highly suggest using Powershell instead.

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  2. set Result=0

echo start %Result%

echo Adding 4 and 2
set /a Result= 4+2

echo finish %result%

pause >nul
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  3. If you have bash/perl installed (eg. cygwin), just call them to do the math:

    @for /f "delims=" %%a in ('perl -e "print(%*)"'        ) do @set RESULT=%%a
@echo %RESULT%

@for /f "delims=" %%a in ('bash -c "echo $((%*))"'        ) do @set RESULT=%%a  
@echo %RESULT%

    Sample result:

    c:\> script.cmd  2**10/3
341.333333333333
341
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