DOS - String Variable

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Text - String data type in DOS

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Manipulation

Replace

When you want to use the time, you will get colon that you can't use in a file name. To overcome this problem, you can replace the colon with an underscore.

set theTime=%time%
echo theTime

15:04:31.11

:: Replace : with _
echo %theTime::=_%

15_04_31.11

Slice

The slice operation syntax is:

%myVariable:~indexFirst,numberOfLetters %

where:

• the ~ tilde indicates the slice function
• indexFirst indicates the position of the first letters (It can be negative)
• numberOfLetters indicates the number of letters (It can be negative)

Example:

set theTime=%time%
echo %theTime%

15:12:16.36

• Extracting the substring from the third position with 2 letters length.

echo %theTime:~3,2%

12

• Removing the last three characters (From the beginning to the end minus three characters)

echo %theTime:~,-3%

15:12:16

• Removing the first three characters:

echo %theTime:~3%

12:16.36

• Extracting the last three character

echo %theTime:~-3%

.36

Comparison

See text and number comparison