CODEWITHSUNDEEP
windowsbatch-filecmd
djangofan
djangofan

Reputation: 29669

Shortest Windows batch file code to get first line of a file set to a variable?

I am looking for the shortest amount of code possible that will get the first line of a text file and set it to a variable in Windows.

There are lots of examples of this kind of thing in other threads on this StackExchange site but I am not looking for how to loop through and display all lines in a file. What I want is to just simply get the first line.

Upvotes: 22

Views: 52935

Answers (6)

cure
cure

Reputation: 2688

This is just a slightly shorter version:

set/pz=<file
echo %z%

Upvotes: 18

S Techy Tse
S Techy Tse

Reputation: 1

just FYI...

I tried it and didn't work. But I realized finally that I had to reproduce the text file (originally the text file is generated by a powershell script) so when I did this and it works.

:: output to different file
Type Text.txt > text2.txt

Then apply the same code (change text.txt to text2.txt)

set /p var= <Text2.txt
echo %var%

If I use the original one, I would either get garbage in %var%, not sure if the text file has not <CR> or what. Anyway, by reproducing the text file, it seems working fine.

Upvotes: -1

user3110750
user3110750

Reputation: 21

I couldn't get this to work under Windows 7; the variable was simply not set. But here's a slightly longer solution:

for /F "delims=" %%i in (Text.txt) do (  
  set Z=%%i
  goto BREAK1
)
:BREAK1
echo %Z%

Upvotes: 2

phuclv
phuclv

Reputation: 41754

If delayed expansion has been enabled before (Setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion or cmd started with /V:ON option) then there's a shorter (one-liner) version

set /pz=<filename.txt&echo !z!

Upvotes: 2

Ganesh Kamath - &#39;Code Frenzy&#39;
Ganesh Kamath - &#39;Code Frenzy&#39;

Reputation: 5283

I had to change the line of file for a text file inside Program Files(x86) directory. After trying a lot of solutions, the following solution worked for me:

Steps:

  1. Use type command piped with findstrto get a file with the desired data
  2. Delete the original file
  3. Use type command to move the content back to the file with the original file name
  4. Delete the new file

Example:

@echo off
set originalFile="C:\Program Files (x86)\<Target File Path>\<Target File Name>"
set newFile="C:\Program Files (x86)\<Target File Path>\<Target newFile Name>"
if exist %originalFile% (
    type %originalFile% | findstr /v T4VSHost >> %newFile%
    del %originalFile% /F /Q
    type %newFile% >> %originalFile%
    del %newFile% /F /Q
)
@echo on

Note:

When I tried writing the change back to the original file in step 1, the result was a an empty file.

Note the string I am matching is T4VSHost, which occurs in the file at path C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\Entity Framework Tools\Templates\Includes\EF6.Utility.CS.ttinclude

Upvotes: 0

Joe
Joe

Reputation: 11637

set /p var= <Text.txt
echo %var%

Referenced from: http://forums.techguy.org/software-development/551867-batch-file-read-line-text.html Ironically the poster is able to get the first line but wanted to loop through the whole file!

Upvotes: 40

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