CMD DOS SET with colon and tilde for SUBSTRING

CMD DOS SET with colon and tilde for SUBSTRING

This example shows the meaning of the syntax of a SET statement with a tilde to specify starting and ending position to get a substring.  

Test7.cmd = regular expansion

Test8.cmd = delayed expansion

Test7.cmd:

@echo off SET start=4 SET length=9 rem            123456789 rem        123456789abcdef SET string=The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog rem            |        | echo %string% rem note that the set variable must be different CALL SET substring=%%string:~%start%,%length%%% ECHO %substring% goto:eof

Output:

C:\testscripts>test7 The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog quick bro C:\testscripts>

original source:  ss64.com - example

ss64.com had an example but did not explain it - this tries to explain it.

test8.cmd:

SETLOCAL ENABLEDDELAYEDEXPANSION version

This example takes text from position 2 and picks up 5 characters

@echo off cls SETLOCAL enabledelayedexpansion set vwb_suffix=Flightoffancy echo vwb_suffix 1 = !vwb_suffix! set startIndex=2 set length=5 rem note that the set variable must be different CALL SET _vwb_suffix=!vwb_suffix:~%startIndex%,%length%! echo _vwb_suffix 2 = !_vwb_suffix! goto:eof

Output:

vwb_suffix 1 = Flightoffancy _vwb_suffix 2 = ighto