63

How do I modify this:

for /f %%a IN ('dir /b /s build\release\*.dll') do echo "%%a"

to work when the path contains spaces?

For example, if this is run from

c:\my folder with spaces

it will echo:

c:\my

Thanks

Ross Ridge
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Andrew Bullock
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  • Try not to use parameter extensions letters for variables, if you later need to add them the code will be hard to read and prone to errors. They are f d p n x s a t z. The easiest and safest way is to use upper-case letters (i.e. %%a and %%A are different variables). – Ricardo Zorio Jul 02 '17 at 19:48

4 Answers4

101

You need to use:

for /f "delims=" %%a IN ('dir /b /s build\release\*.dll') do echo "%%a"

This overrides the default delimiters which are TAB and SPACE

Jan Zyka
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35

I got around this by prepending "type" and putting double quotes surrounding the path in the IN clause

FOR /F %%A IN ('type "c:\A Path With Spaces\A File.txt"') DO (
    ECHO %%A
)

This article gave me the idea to use "type" in the IN clause.

Jason
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7

If you don't want to deal with "quotes" you can use the "s" switch in %~dpnx[]... this will output the short filenames that are easy to work with.

from the Command line...

for /f "delims=" %f IN ('dir /b /s "C:\Program Files\*.dll"') do echo %~sdpnxf

inside a .CMD/.BAT file you need to "escape" the [%] e.g., double-up [%%]

for /f "delims=" %%f IN ('dir /b /s "C:\Program Files\*.dll"') do echo %%~sdpnxf
metadings
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thomspengler
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0

The problem is there's a wildcard in the string that gets interpreted as a filename. You also need double quotes for a string with spaces. I'm not sure if there's a way to escape the wildcard.

for %a IN ("dir /b /s build\release\.dll") do echo %a

"dir /b /s build\release\.dll"
js2010
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