Find text within file

[GoodPrognosis]

Hi guys,

I need to run a batch file that:

Looks inside a file for the existence of specified txt... and then set a variable to the value of the characters next to that txt.

God if I struggle to explain it in English no wonder I can't do it in DOS!

So I managed to hack this together (by trial and error really) to put the filename in to a variable (the file will always start with EJ but could have anything to follow that)

FOR /F "tokens=1 delims=" %%A in ('dir EJ* /b') do (
SET ejfilename=%%A
echo %ejfilename%
)

This works and everyone in the village was amazed.

But checking inside that file is killing me...

The thing I am searching for is "MC". Inside this file is a machine ID of the form MC00014 - so I need to look for "MC" and add to a variable the 5 numbers following it.

When I cut and paste the data from the EJ file in to new file "findme.txt" I can run this on the command line: findstr "MC00" findme.txt and it returns the line that contains the MC00015.

But when I run that on the EJ file it fails to find anything. Perhaps this is the unicode limitation of findstr?

So I thought of running: FIND "MC00" ejdata

But that doesn't find anything either.

Why didn't I pay more attention in school? Why am I attempting this with a massive hangover?

Anyway... so if anyone could point me in the right direction I would be very grateful.

tia

GP.

[abc0502]

Can you provide the text file or a sample of it, maybe there is another simple way to do that.

[foxidrive]

Try this and see what it spits out.

Code: Select all

@echo off
setlocal EnableExtensions EnableDelayedExpansion
for /f "delims=" %%a in ('dir ej* /a:-d /o:n /b') do (
for /f "delims=" %%b in ('findstr /r /i "mc[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]" "%%a" ') do (
set var=%%b
echo %%a - "!var!"
)
)
pause

[GoodPrognosis]

You'll be pleased to know that the hangover is gone and the world is a much more cheery place. And you're attempt to fix this foxi has really cheered me up

I've continued to play on the command line with find and findstr and I think the problem has something to do with the format the data file is in. I've noticed in notepad++ that the file is reported in Macintosh format.

For initial testing I cut and pasted the first 50 or so lines in to a testfile.txt and when I do:

FIND "MC00"" testfile.txt

it works

and when i do

FINDSTR "MC00" testfile.txt it also works.

But when I try and find in the original file (both methods) it doesn't work.

Your suggestion just stopped at the pause with no output. (I've add some echo's to your code):

@echo off
setlocal EnableExtensions EnableDelayedExpansion
for /f "delims=" %%a in ('dir ej* /a:-d /o:n /b') do (
echo %%a
for /f "delims=" %%b in ('findstr /r /i "MC[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]" "%%a" ') do (
echo %%b
set var=%%b
echo %%a - "!var!"
)
)
pause

So the first echo successfully echo's the filename. Hooray.

But the 2nd echo doesn't echo anything. Boo.

...

Ok so a dump of the actual text file will be very difficult. But I will dump an example of the line I am looking for within the file. I'll also dump one of the lines that has a weird 'esc' character in it... and a combination of these two should be enough for you to understand why I can't dump the entire file Then I shall stop using the word dump so much.

Thanks for your efforts thus far.

GP

Line I'm looking for (that has the MC code):
01/07/12 03:29 MC00016

Example of other line:
 03:29:10 PIN ENTERED

...hmm I can't paste the offending line in to this box.. the weird ESC character won't paste. It has a black background with a white font.

Am I missing the fundamental point here?

[foxidrive]

Maybe the file is a binary file or unicode.

Try this to see if it changes:

Code: Select all

@echo off
setlocal EnableExtensions EnableDelayedExpansion
for /f "delims=" %%a in ('dir ej* /a:-d /o:n /b') do (
for /f "delims=" %%b in ('type "%%a"^|findstr /r /i "mc[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]" ') do (
set var=%%b
echo %%a - "!var!"
)
)
pause

[GoodPrognosis]

I get a page full of:

FINDSTR: Line 1 is too long.
FINDSTR: Line 1 is too long.
FINDSTR: Line 1 is too long.
FINDSTR: Line 1 is too long.
FINDSTR: Line 1 is too long.

I'll look this one up when I get home.

Thanks so much for your thoughts.

GP

[foxidrive]

Ok, try this.

The nature of the file is still unknown, but find.exe can process longer lines than findstr

Code: Select all

@echo off
setlocal EnableExtensions EnableDelayedExpansion
for /f "delims=" %%a in ('dir ej* /a:-d /o:n /b') do (
for /f "delims=" %%b in ('type "%%a"^|find " MC" ') do (
set var=%%b
echo %%a - "!var!"
)
)
pause