How to include a line of a text file in a batch command?

Question

How exactly do you include a line from a text file in a command in cmd

eg

Text File1.txt

notepad
firefox
outlook

So you can execute a command eg start (line number here)

So "start 3" would launch outlook etc

Answer 1

The following batch script reads and echoes the lines from a text file:

for /f "delims=|" %%i in (file1.txt) do @echo %%i

The delims is necessary if the text lines contain spaces (or anything other than '|' , or any other arbitrary but rare character you want).

So you could probably modify the script to execute each line as a command:

for /f "delims=|" %%i in (file1.txt) do @start "x" %%i

Note

You need the double %% if you're executing this command within a batch file, but only single % if you're executing it directly in a command shell window.