Tab Delimiter not working Batch Command

Question

I have a batch file which reads and set values from a text file. But the text file contains tabs for different variables

Batch file command:

for /f "tokens=* delims=<TAB>" %%x in (input.txt) do set %%x

Text File(input.txt):

a=one     b=two     c=three    d=four

But the variables are not being set properly.

Answer 1

Two points here:

• The default delims= value include the space and Tab as delimiters, so you don't have to include a delims= option, unless you want to ignore the spaces as delimiters!

• Your tokens=* option define one token letter in your for command ( %%x in this case) that contain all tokens in the line. If you want to get four tokens you need to specify tokens=1-4 , start the tokens-letter with another one, and process each token accordingly:

.

for /f "tokens=1-4" %%a in (input.txt) do (
   set "%%a" & set "%%b" & set "%%c" & set "%%d"
)

Answer 2

this works even, if your textfile has several lines (with different / unknown number of tokens):

@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
for /f "tokens=*" %%i in (input.txt) do (
  set line=%%i
  for %%x in ("!line:   =","!") do set %%x
)

the trick is: by enclosing a string in quotes, delimiter chars are not treated as delimiters any more. So adding a quote at the beginning and end of the string AND replacing each TAB with "quote comma quote" changes the string to:

"a=one","b=two","c=three","d=four"

which can happily be processed with for %%x ...