direct cmd output to variable using pipes

Question

I am trying see how many files how been updated today. So I am running:

forfiles /P C:\Directory\ /S /D %DATE:~4,10% | wc -w

now I am trying to set the result to a variable but cant' seem to get it work with:

@echo off set files=forfiles /P C:\Directory\  /S /D %DATE:~4,10% | wc -w

when I use echo "%files%" I get : %files% as output.

Anyone know what I am doing wrong. I am new to cmd coming from unix.

Magoo · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-26 15:22:21Z

1

@echo off 
for /f %%c in ('forfiles /P C:\Directory\  /S /D %DATE:~4,10% ^| wc -w') do set files=%%c
echo %files% found

(untested)

answered Feb 26, 2014 at 15:22

Magoo

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3 Comments

%%c was unexpected at this time. is the error I get

this might be because of %DATE% but I am not sure.

This is a batch file. If you are executing directly from the prompt, change %%c to %c throughout