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Hi, I'm new to writing batch files, but I come across an interesting problem when passing lines of HTML code to a function. Basically I noticed that my lines of html string literals were being happily processed by my functions, until a semicolon (;) in between two double quotation marks. At that point the semicolon acted as a delimiter and the rest of the text in the line got passed to the next param in the function. I also noticed the same problem with full colons
I hope I'm just missing a newbie mistake, that can be easily fix. Is there a workaround this? Otherwise I have to do some clever explaining to my boss why I've been wasting the last week writing a batch code that will never work.

Below is quick batch file that illustrates the problem:

Thank you for your time.

BatchFunctionCallDelimitBug.bat

@echo off

REM -- Prepare the Command Processor --
SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS
SETLOCAL DISABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION

REM.-- Version History:
REM XX.XXX YYYYMMDD Author Description
REM Version01.001-beta &:20130730 m.y.cowan to find delimiter bug when string literals are passed to a function

:BatchFunctionCallDelimitBug- parses a File line by line"
::syntax: BatchFunctionCallDelimitBug.bat "word" File
:: "word" - a throw away param
:: File [in] - file to be parsed
:: e.g. TYPE sourceText.txt|BatchFunctionCallDelimitBug.bat "word">result.txt

set "param1=param1"
set "param2=param2"
set "param3=param3"

if defined param1 set "param1=%param1:""="%"

echo param1 is %param1%
echo param2 is %param2%
echo param3 is %param3%
echo.

if "%~1"=="" findstr "^::" "%~f0"&GOTO:EOF

for /f "delims=" %%A in ('"findstr /n ^^ %3"') do (
set "line=%%A"
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion

set "line=!line:*:=!"

echo.line is !line!

call :stringFunction "!line!" %param2% %param3%

echo.

)
goto:eof

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:stringFunction -- returns position of first occurrence of a string in another
string, case sensitive, maximum string length is 1023 characters
:: -- %~1: in - varible name of a string to be searched
:: -- %~2: in - string to be found
:: -- %~3: out- return variable name, will be set to position or undefined if string not found


SetLocal EnableDelayedExpansion
set "pos="
set "sf_param_1=%~1"
set "sf_param_2=%~2"
set "sf_param_3=%~3"

echo.findString sf_param_1 !sf_param_1! sf_param_2 !sf_param_2! sf_param_3 !sf_param_3!
EXIT /b

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

sourceText.txt
"word1" "word2" "word3" "word4" "word5" "word6"
"word1;" "word2" "word3" "word4" "word5" "word6" :: everything after the semicolon gets passed to the 2nd param
"word1"; "word2" "word3" "word4" "word5" "word6"
"word1;" "word2" "word3;" "word4" "word5" "word6" :: word2 and word3 get sent to the 2nd param, word 4, 5, 6 are sent to the 3rd

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The output should be something like this

result.txt
param1 is param1
param2 is param2
param3 is param3

line is "word1" "word2" "word3" "word4" "word5" "word6"
findString sf_param_1 "word1" "word2" "word3" "word4" "word5" "word6"
sf_param_2 param2 sf_param_3 param3

line is "word1;" "word2" "word3" "word4" "word5" "word6"
findString sf_param_1 "word1
sf_param_2 "word2" "word3" "word4" "word5" "word6" sf_param_3 param2

line is "word1"; "word2" "word3" "word4" "word5" "word6"
findString sf_param_1 "word1"; "word2" "word3" "word4" "word5" "word6" sf_param_2 param2 sf_param_3 param3

line is "word1;" "word2" "word3;" "word4" "word5" "word6"
findString sf_param_1 "word1 sf_param_2 "word2" "word3 sf_param_3 "word4" "word5" "word6"

Some characters are treated as whitespace when used on a command line or within a call - see this example. Full colons are not.

if you double quote them then they will be preserved as a single argument.

foxidrive,

Thanks for the reply.

But, if you notice I pass the first parameter in with double " " inside a lope

call :stringFunction "!line!" %param2% %param3%

double " " seem to work fine in with a normal function call, but I get this breakdown inside a loop and when I use ! !

Also I noticed today that with the line

line is "word1;" "word2" "word3" "word4" "word5" "word6"
findString sf_param_1 "word1 sf_param_2 "word2" "word3" "word4" "word5" "word6" sf_param_3 param2

not only does the remaining text is passed to the 2nd parameter, but the variable for the 2nd parameter gets passed to the 3rd parameter.

Weird.

It helps to discuss what you are trying to get the batch file to do.

I would comment too that your sample code is not clear enough to show the issue - simplify the code so that it is only what is required.

Umm okay.
This is a stripped down sample of some code I'm trying to build. It'll parse through a page of html and delete substrings i.e. jQuerry tags of varying lengths. (Yes I know there are plenty of IDEs out there that can do this, but I'm working in a very secure environment - annoyingly so) My design is have a loop parse through the lines of html. Sending each line off to some functions that will find the beginning of a jQuerry substring, then the end of the jQuery substring to get the length and then finally remove the substring.

In the code I posted here the loop parses through the lines of text from the sourceText.txt and then passes that line to :stringFunction which then prints the line out. I'm just trying to demonstrate the problem I've found - that when string literals that have semicolons inside of paired quotation marks, the semicolons seem to act like delimiters.

I would like to know how to get around this problem.

Cheers.

This is the most problematic line

call :stringFunction "!line!" %param2% %param3%

As it's not possible to pass a string in a safe way with CALL.

It's better only to pass the names of the variables, like

And later to access them by

Thanks jeb,

I hope I can give this a try this weekend.

Cheers.