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

All the answers are complete. But Wanted to add one thing,

set FirstName=%~1

set LastName=%~2

This line should have worked, you needed a small change.

set "FirstName=%~1"

set "LastName=%~2"

Include the complete assignment within quotes. It will remove quotes without an issue. This is a prefered way of assignment which fixes unwanted issues with quotes in arguments.

Answer 2

You have an extra double quote at the end, which is adding it back to the end of the string (after removing both quotes from the string).

Input:

set widget="a very useful item"
set widget
set widget=%widget:"=%
set widget

Output:

widget="a very useful item"
widget=a very useful item

Note: To replace Double Quotes " with Single Quotes ' do the following:

set widget=%widget:"='%

Note: To replace the word "World" (not case sensitive) with BobB do the following:

set widget="Hello World!"
set widget=%widget:world=BobB%
set widget

Output:

widget="Hello BobB!"

As far as your initial question goes (save the following code to a batch file .cmd or .bat and run):

@ECHO OFF
ECHO %0
SET BathFileAndPath=%~0
ECHO %BathFileAndPath%
ECHO "%BathFileAndPath%"
ECHO %~0
ECHO %0
PAUSE

Output:

"C:\Users\Test\Documents\Batch Files\Remove Quotes.cmd"
C:\Users\Test\Documents\Batch Files\Remove Quotes.cmd
"C:\Users\Test\Documents\Batch Files\Remove Quotes.cmd"
C:\Users\Test\Documents\Batch Files\Remove Quotes.cmd
"C:\Users\Test\Documents\Batch Files\Remove Quotes.cmd"
Press any key to continue . . .

%0 is the Script Name and Path.
%1 is the first command line argument, and so on.

Answer 3

Spent a lot of time trying to do this in a simple way. After looking at FOR loop carefully, I realized I can do this with just one line of code:

FOR /F "delims=" %%I IN (%Quoted%) DO SET Unquoted=%%I

Example:

@ECHO OFF
SET Quoted="Test string"

FOR /F "delims=" %%I IN (%Quoted%) DO SET Unquoted=%%I

ECHO %Quoted%
ECHO %Unquoted%

Output:

"Test string"
Test string

Answer 4

I usually just remove all quotes from my variables with:

set var=%var:"=%

And then apply them again wherever I need them e.g.:

echo "%var%"

Answer 5

This sounds like a simple bug where you are using %~ somewhere where you shouldn't be. The use if %~ doesn't fundamentally change the way batch files work, it just removes quotes from the string in that single situation.