batch for loop not iterating beyond first entry

Question

My problem is pretty simple, but I'm unsure why I am seeing this behaviour. I want to get a list of parameters down to a single entry at a time so I can do some processing on them. The list of jar files I am processing is separated by a ; delimiter.

set JARS=this.jar;that.jar;and.jar;the.jar;other.jar
for /f "delims=;" %%a in ("%JARS%") do echo.%%a

I'm expecting the script to exit listing as follows.

this.jar
that.jar
and.jar
the.jar
other.jar
C:\>

But the script is instead exiting as follows.

this.jar
C:\>

I'm clearly missing something obvious, but I can't seem to see it.

I'm using Windows 7.

FOR /F will parse the content line by line first, then use the delimiter to separate the line into tokens. In your case, the content of JARS is on a single line, so you only get the first token. — Laf
– Laf, Commented Feb 6, 2014 at 15:59
Thanks for the help. Foxidrive's answer is saying the same as you mention, but the answer is still not right. Any thoughts on how I can tokenize a single line? — mrswadge
– mrswadge, Commented Feb 6, 2014 at 16:16
I am getting the expected output with @foxidrive's answer. What kind of output are you getting? — Laf
– Laf, Commented Feb 6, 2014 at 16:22
Strange. I just tried again and it worked. I must have had something else playing up and confused myself with the answer. Thanks! — mrswadge
– mrswadge, Commented Feb 6, 2014 at 16:26
You should also upvote foxidrive's answer if it helped you. ;) — Laf
– Laf, Commented Feb 6, 2014 at 16:27

foxidrive · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-06 15:57:38Z

3

Try this: The semicolon is a separator on a command line so it will delimit the filenames.

set JARS=this.jar;that.jar;and.jar;the.jar;other.jar
for %%a in (%JARS%) do echo.%%a

answered Feb 6, 2014 at 15:57

foxidrive

41.4k11 gold badges61 silver badges71 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

batch for loop not iterating beyond first entry

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related