How to write a single spacebar to a txt file with batch

Question

I need to add a single spacebar to a textfile ussing batch

however the following dosnt work

ECHO  >C:\txt.txt

this produces the text Echo is (off) instead???

Im ussing windows batch

Answer 1

echo is printing the text "ECHO if off" because you haven't provided any parameters to it. If you type echo /? for usage instructions you will see this behavior defined: "Type ECHO without parameters to display the current echo setting". So, in your case, echo is set to off.

If you want to have on the space character without a newline and carriage return you will most likely need to use set. If you are using Windows XP, this should be easy.

Windows XP

>txt.txt ( <nul set /p "= " ) 

If you are running Vista or Higher it keeps a little tricky because windows strips leading spaces on the set command.

Windows Vista or Higher

You will need to create a backspace character and then print that:

:: Create a backspace character
for /f %%A in ('"prompt $H &echo on &for %%B in (1) do rem"') do set BS=%%A

<nul set /p=%BS% > txt.txt

Note that this doesn't actually print a space, but a backspace character instead. I'm not quite sure if this will work for you, but I couldn't think of any easier way. Otherwise you are probably better off using some other scripting language, like python or powershell.