Removing double quotes from variables in batch file creates problems with CMD environment

Question

Can anybody help with effective and safe way of removing quotes from batch variables?

I have written a batch file which successfully imports a list of parameters %1,

Answer 1

The simple tilde syntax works only for removing quotation marks around the command line parameters being passed into the batch files

SET xyz=%~1

Above batch file code will set xyz to whatever value is being passed as first paramter stripping away the leading and trailing quotations (if present).

But, This simple tilde syntax will not work for other variables that were not passed in as parameters

For all other variable, you need to use expanded substitution syntax that requires you to specify leading and lagging characters to be removed. Effectively we are instructing to remove strip away the first and the last character without looking at what it actually is.

@SET SomeFileName="Some Quoted file name"
@echo %SomeFileName% %SomeFileName:~1,-1%

If we wanted to check what the first and last character was actually quotation before removing it, we will need some extra code as follows

@SET VAR="Some Very Long Quoted String"
If aa%VAR:~0,1%%VAR:~-1%aa == aa""aa SET UNQUOTEDVAR=%VAR:~1,-1%

Answer 2

@echo off

Setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

Set 1=%1

Set 1=!1:"=!

Echo !1!

Echo "!1!"

Set 1=

Demonstrates with or without quotes reguardless of whether original parameter has quotes or not.

And if you want to test the existence of a parameter which may or may not be in quotes, put this line before the echos above:

If '%1'=='' goto yoursub

But if checking for existence of a file that may or may not have quotes then it's:

If EXIST "!1!" goto othersub

Note the use of single quotes and double quotes are different.

Answer 3

1. set widget="a very useful item"
2. set widget
3. widget="a very useful item"
4. set widget=%widget:"=%"
5. set widget
6. set widget=a very useful item"

The trailing quote " in line 4 is adding a quote " to the string. It should be removed. The syntax for line 4 ends with %

Answer 4

I learned from this link, if you are using XP or greater that this will simply work by itself:

SET params = %~1

I could not get any of the other solutions here to work on Windows 7.

To iterate over them, I did this:

FOR %%A IN (%params%) DO (    
   ECHO %%A    
)

Note: You will only get double quotes if you pass in arguments separated by a space typically.

Answer 5

Your conclusion (1) sounds wrong. There must be some other factor at play.

The problem of quotes in batch file parameters is normally solved by removing the quotes with %~ and then putting them back manually where appropriate.

E.g.:

set cmd=%~1
set params=%~2 %~3

"%cmd%" %params%

Note the quotes around %cmd%. Without them, path with spaces won't work.

If you could post your entire batch code, maybe more specific answer could be made.

Answer 6

I thought I had the solution, but I soon experienced unusual behavior with execution of batch files. Suddenly CMD is no recognizing long path statments. Normal execution of batch file from full path

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\Txt\batchtest\dataout.bat

returns

'C:\Documents' is not recognized as an internal or external command....

There's your whole problem. CMD doesn't understand spaces inside of filenames from the command line, so it thinks you're trying to pass

and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\Txt\batchtest\dataout.bat

as parameters to the

"C:\Documents"

program.

You need to quote it to run a batch file with spaces in the path:

> "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\Txt\batchtest\dataout.bat"

would have worked.