Win bat file: How to get the result of FIND into a new variable?

Question

The pdftk tool "dump_data" function can be used to deliver meta information about a pdf, including the number of pages. The following command...

pdftk test.pdf dump_data | find "NumberOfPages"

...outputs the full data dump line, for example:

"Number of pages: 32"

How can I get the count value (32 in the above case) into a new variable for further processing in the bat file?

Answer 1

If the format of the line is fixed and matches the one you've shown, you could try something like this:

@ECHO OFF
>testfile ECHO Number of pages: 32
FOR /F "delims=: tokens=2" %%A IN ('TYPE testfile ^| FIND "Number of pages"') DO SET /A pagenum=%%A
ECHO %pagenum%

Outputs:

32

Naturally, >testfile ECHO ... line is just for testing purposes, and the TYPE testfile part of the FOR loop should be replaced by your pdftk test.pdf dump_data .

Answer 2

Try this:

FOR /F "usebackq delims=" %%v IN (`pdftk test.pdf dump_data ^| find "Number of pages"`) DO (
    FOR /F "delims=: tokens=1,2" %%i IN ("%%v") DO set NBPAGES=%%j
)

Note that you have to use two % in front of every variables in the above example if you are using it in a batch file. If you are running it directly from the console, use only one % .