Assign output of a program to a variable using a MS batch file

Question

I need to assign the output of a program to a variable using a MS batch file.

So in GNU Bash shell I would use VAR=$(application arg0 arg1). I need a similar behavior in Windows using a batch file.

Something like set VAR=application arg0 arg1.

Answer 1

One way is:

application arg0 arg1 > temp.txt set /p VAR=<temp.txt 

Another is:

for /f %%i in ('application arg0 arg1') do set VAR=%%i 

Note that the first % in %%i is used to escape the % after it and is needed when using the above code in a batch file rather than on the command line. Imagine, your test.bat has something like:

for /f %%i in ('c:\cygwin64\bin\date.exe +"%%Y%%m%%d%%H%%M%%S"') do set datetime=%%i echo %datetime% 

Answer 2

As an addition to this previous answer, pipes can be used inside a for statement, escaped by a caret symbol:

    for /f "tokens=*" %%i in ('tasklist ^| grep "explorer"') do set VAR=%%i