windows batch Iterate tokens in a for loop

Question

How to iterate through tokens in a for loop in Windows batch scripting?

I'm writing a script that allows the user to search a file and print out the parent directory for that file. So far I can get a full path from a file name but I just need the parent directory. Works fine but would like a more efficient way of iterating through the tokens.

Here is a snip-it of what I have. The file variable is the file to be searched and thePath variable is the full path to the file.

fOR /F "tokens=1-25 delims=\" %%i IN ("!thePath!") DO (

    if %%j equ %file% set theParent= %%i
    if %%k equ %file% set theParent= %%j
    if %%l equ %file% set theParent= %%k
    if %%m equ %file% set theParent= %%l
    if %%n equ %file% set theParent= %%m
    if %%o equ %file% set theParent= %%n
    if %%p equ %file% set theParent= %%o
    if %%q equ %file% set theParent= %%p
    if %%r equ %file% set theParent= %%q
    if %%s equ %file% set theParent= %%r
    if %%t equ %file% set theParent= %%s
    if %%u equ %file% set theParent= %%t
    if %%v equ %file% set theParent= %%u
    if %%w equ %file% set theParent= %%v
    if %%x equ %file% set theParent= %%w
    if %%y equ %file% set theParent= %%x
    if %%z equ %file% set theParent= %%y


)
echo The parent directory is: %theParent%

Answer 1

Your approach cannot work reliably because a file may share the same name as one of its parent folders.

There is no need to iterate FOR /F tokens. You can get the parent folder directly using a simple FOR :-)

for %%F in ("!thePath!\..") do set "theParent=%%~nxF"
echo The parent directory is: !theParent!

Note - theParent will be undefined (empty) if the file is in the root directory.