How can I load the contents of a text file into a batch file variable?

Question

I need to be able to load the entire contents of a text file and load it into a variable for further processing.

How can I do that?

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Here\'s what I di

Answer 1

Can you define further processing?

You can use a for loop to almost do this, but there's no easy way to insert CR/LF into an environment variable, so you'll have everything in one line. (you may be able to work around this depending on what you need to do.)

You're also limited to less than about 8k text files this way. (You can't create a single env var bigger than around 8k.)

Bill's suggestion of a for loop is probably what you need. You process the file one line at a time:

(use %i at a command line %%i in a batch file)

for /f "tokens=1 delims=" %%i in (file.txt) do echo %%i

more advanced:

for /f "tokens=1 delims=" %%i in (file.txt) do call :part2 %%i
goto :fin

:part2
echo %1
::do further processing here
goto :eof

:fin