Issue while reading the text from file using batch file

Question

I'm trying to write one batch file which will read text from a text file and set to a variable.

This is the text file.

out.txt

C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows NT\text1.txt
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows NT\text2.txt
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows NT\text3.txt
   3 file(s) copied. 

Here my doubt is I want to set C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Windows NT to a variable. I tried with the following command which will hold the complete text file.

FOR /f "delims=/" %%a IN (out.txt) DO echo %%a

Can anyone please tell me how can I read a particular string from the text file.

Thanks In Advance.

Answer 1

If I understand correctly, you want to get the full path of the files mentioned in out.txt , but without the filename. This can be done using parameter extensions , like this:

FOR /f "delims=" %%a IN (out.txt) DO ECHO %%~dpa

In your example, it will output

C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows NT\
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows NT\
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows NT\

Update: To save only the result of the first line , use this:

@ECHO OFF
FOR /f "delims=" %%a IN (out.txt) DO (
    SET path_in_first_line=%%~dpa
    GOTO skip
)
:skip
ECHO %path_in_first_line%

Answer 2

Splitting the line using the backslash as a delimiter

for /f "tokens=1-3 delims=\" %%a in (out.txt) do set "var=%%a\%%b\%%c"
echo %var%

Asking for the drive and path of the element in the line

for /f "delims=" %%a in (out.txt) do set "var=%%~dpa"
echo %var%

Of course, as the for command iterates over all the lines in the file, the var variable will only hold the value retrieved from the last line in the file.