Hello,

Can someone explain how to manipulate data read from a file?

I'm trying to read one line from a text file, put that line in a variable, do something with that variable and repeat with next line until the end of the file.

It's for another homework assignment. The teacher seems to have a habit of not giving us enough information. It's really frustrating and time consuming, I've spent the whole afternoon trying to figure out how to do this. Sorry, I'll stop complaining now.

I think I need to use a For statement. I can get it to read the file and print the contents to the screen. What I can't figure out is how to take each line from the text file and do something with it.

This is what I have:Code: [Select]@echo off

for %%f in (machine.txt) do type %%f
Can ANYONE recommend a good reference, like a book or something, that explains how to do stuff like this?

ThanksCode: [Select]@echo off
for /f %%F in (machine.txt) do (
echo %%F
)
pause
this will echo each line in file

and try for /? in cmd to get more infoThis site has good inflammation of the FOR command.
FOR /f means to read lines for just one file.

Otherwise FOR often means the file names found in a directory

The example you gave was FOR without the /f switch, that is what changes the meaning of the for command.This is a kind of metal abuse that MS has imposed on us. Instead of a /f option, they shroud have named a new command. like maybe
ROF. Which is FOR slept backwards and means Read One File. and that would be easy to remember. But nobody can remember to use the /f with FOR command, except the experts on this forum , they can withstand the heavy mental abuse.

Excuse me, I need a Prozac. Quote from: The Hansenator on April 04, 2009, 03:08:17 PM

Can someone explain how to manipulate data read from a file?

Perl is specifically designed to be easy to use for manipulating text files, I believe.

The teacher seems to have a habit of not giving us enough information.

It's a well known teacher's trick, called "hopefully making you think and learn how to discover things". Like the fact that commands have help that you see by typing the command, a space, and /? at the prompt.

Try typing FOR /? at the command prompt.

Code: [Select]@echo off
for /f %%F in (machine.txt) do (
echo %%F
)
pause
this will echo each line in file

FOR /f means to read lines for just one file.

Otherwise FOR often means the file names found in a directory