How to read a string with “!” from a file in windows batch script?

Question

I'm writing a batch script to read from a file. The file contains lines such as token=value. I have code to parse each line of the file and it is stored in %%i. The following code tries to extract the value of token:

Take note that this script is using delayed expansion, as mentioned in the comments.

   for /f "tokens=1* delims==" %%a in ("%%i") do (  
      if "%%a"=="password" ( set password=%%b )  
   )

If value of token password contains "!", then the "!" is skipped and only rest of the string is stored in variable password. Example, if the line is:

password=Test!

then variable password=Test . I have tried to change the input file various ways and batch script reads everything except "!". I have used:

1. password="Test!"
2. password="Test^!"

3. password=Test%!

   password=Test%!

and everything skips "!". Any idea how I can read a string with "!" into a variable?

Answer 1

Assuming you're using delayed variable expansion just disable it temporarily for the comparison. To compare in the non-delayed mode I'd parse the current line splitting by ! and check if the first token is the same as the entire line:

@echo off
setlocal enableDelayedExpansion
for /f "delims=" %%i in (sourcefile.txt) do (
    setlocal disableDelayedExpansion
    for /f "delims=! tokens=1" %%z in ("%%i") do (
        if "%%z"=="%%i" ( rem The line has no !
            for /f "tokens=1* delims==" %%a in ("%%i") do (
                if "%%a"=="password" ( set "password=%%b" )
            )
        )
    )
    endlocal
)
pause

However password variable will be only available in the inner setlocal context, to export it use that answer .

Answer 2

I am not experiencing that problem with the code you posted. I think the error may precede the code you posted which stores each line of the file in %%i.

Put an echo statement in there before your %%a loop so that you can verify the contents of %%i before processing further. I highly suspect that the exclamation point isn't making it into %%i in the first place.

Here is the full CMD file I ran on Windows 7:

@echo off
for /f "tokens=1* delims= " %%i in ("password=Test!") do (

echo i: %%i
   for /f "tokens=1* delims==" %%a in ("%%i") do (  
      if "%%a"=="password" ( set password=%%b )  
   )
)
echo password: %password%

The output is as follows:

i: password=Test!
password: Test!

So you can see that Test! is making it through the for loop intact when %%i contains password=Test! . If you want to post the earlier pieces of your batch file, we can help you troubleshoot further.