Batch probblem: Cant iterate through string variable-CodePudding

I'm going crazy for 2 days with this simple task: iterate through a 5 line string with delimiters (or a file with the same content). After I find a delimiter symbol I expect to write that line to the file, then add echo for a cr/lf representation and do next iteration for a next piece of string.

For academic purposes I recreate the code like that:

@echo off
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion 
set "LF=&echo."
set "dlm= "
set "s1=A A A" 
set "s2=B B B" 
set "s3=C C C" 
set "s4=D D D" 
set "s5=E E E" 

set "s=%s1%%dlm%%s2%%dlm%%s3%%dlm%%s4%%dlm%%s5%%dlm%"

for /f "tokens=* delims= " %%i in ("%s%") do (
    echo %%i>>test.txt
    echo. >>test.txt
)
pause

The output is like:

A A A B B B C C C D D D E E E 
newline

When I want this

A A A
B B B
C C C
D D D
E E E

When I change token to 1 or 2 it returns the correct line

How to get those sub strings and write them to the file? Why tokens don't work?

I tried to put this into another loop and pass token number as !j!, but it doesn't work. I also thought of a few goto but think it's a bad practice.

CodePudding user response：

With "Tokens=*" you request the for-loop to return everything it finds into the first parameter, and in doing so completely ignore the delims-clause.

What you want is the first 5 tokens, separated by delimiter " ".

for /f "tokens=1-5 delims= " %%i in ("%s%") do  >>test.txt (
echo %%i
echo %%j
echo %%k
echo %%l
echo %%m
echo.

)

CodePudding user response：

The subroutine split_supplied_line in the following batch code snippet should do the trick for (almost) any number of substrings and (almost) any delimiter. No matter whether there is a trailing delimiter.

@ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL EnableExtensions DisableDelayedExpansion
set "LF=&echo."
set "dlm= "
set "s1=A A A" 
set "s2=B B B" 
set "s3=C C C" 
set "s4=D D D" 
set "s5=E E E" 
set "s=%s1%%dlm%%s2%%dlm%%s3%%dlm%%s4%%dlm%%s5%%dlm%"
rem set "s=%s1%%dlm%%s2%%dlm%%s3%%dlm%%s4%%dlm%%s5%" without trailing %dlm%

call :split_supplied_line "%s%" "%dlm%" "72351984test.txt"
goto :eof

:split_supplied_line
set "restofline=%~1" 1st parameter: line to split
set "delims=%~2"     2nd parameter: delimiter character
set "tofile=%~3"     3rd parameter: file where to write
:in_split_supplied_line
call set "noplusline=%restofline: