How to replace variable text in file by using Windows .cmd?

Question

I have .ini file and there is a line with

HOST='pc-name'

fragment. But it can be something else instead of pc-name. HOST='random' or HOST='welcome' for example. I need to find it and replace with HOST='%COMPUTERNAME%' where %COMPUTERNAME% is real computer name where this .cmd file is running. I've only found how to replace static things, so the problem is to detect this fragment with random value. And = is interpreted as assignment operation but I need it as simple text symbol.

P.S. I need to do it with .cmd file.

You can use a regular expression search to find such strings. — Anuparna
– Anuparna, Commented May 29, 2017 at 13:50

Community · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-20 09:12:55Z

1

A tool to search/replace files/pipe lines/blocks: 1 command line

Use msr.exe in my open project https://github.com/qualiu/msr tools directory.

For your case: (Remove -R to preview replacing result; Add -K to backup)

Replace any content HOST=.* to HOST=%COMPUTERNAME% :

msr -p my.ini -t "^(HOST)=.*" -o "$1=\%COMPUTERNAME\%" -R
More general: ignore case, white-spaces:

msr -p my.ini -it "^(HOST)\s*=.*" -o "$1=\%COMPUTERNAME\%" -R

Additionally:

Use msr-Win32.exe if your windows is 32-bit.
Recursively replace in multiple paths and files:

msr -rp directory1,dirN,file1,fileN -f "\.ini$" -it "^(HOST)\s*=.*" -o "$1=\%COMPUTERNAME\%" -R

edited Jun 20, 2020 at 9:12

CommunityBot

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answered Sep 2, 2017 at 14:13

Quanmao

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Comments

Anuparna · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-29 14:20:26Z

0

You can use tools like Notepad++ to open the .ini file.

You can then use a regular expression search to find such strings. For example, you can use HOST='.*' as a search expression with Search mode as "Regular Expression" in Notepad++. This will search for the pattern HOST='any value' and then you can replace it with HOST='%COMPUTERNAME%'

Using CMD, you can use findstr "HOST='.*'" < _place your .ini file name_ >.ini to find all strings which match the pattern and then replace them

edited May 29, 2017 at 14:20

answered May 29, 2017 at 13:56

Anuparna

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3 Comments

tw1ggyz Over a year ago

I need to do it with .cmd file.

Anuparna Over a year ago

superuser.com/questions/339118/regex-replace-from-command-line explains some tools you can use to achieve this.

tw1ggyz Over a year ago

I can use pure cmd only, this is a restriction.

lit · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-29 15:58:36Z

0

If you can assume that HOME= will always start in the first column and that the only thing after it could be a string enclosed in apostrophes, you could do something like.

@ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
FOR /F "usebackq tokens=*" %%s IN (`TYPE "thefile.txt"`) DO (
    SET "STR=%%~s"

    IF "!STR:~0,6!" EQU "HOME='" (
        ECHO HOME='newsetting'
    ) ELSE (
        ECHO %%~s
    )
)

answered May 29, 2017 at 15:58

lit

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Comments

Ronny D'Hoore · Accepted Answer · 2022-06-29 16:02:01Z

If you would have a file with one or more lines containing variables as

HOST='%COMPUTERNAME%'

as you indicate halfway in your post, then you could easily have them replaced as follows. I'm assuming your file is called inputfile and your output goes to outputfile.

for /F "tokens=*" %%I in (inputfile) do call echo %%I>> outputfile

Notes:

The above command should be inside a cmd script, otherwise one should use %I instead of %%I if one wants to run it from the cmd prompt directly.
The "call" statement makes sure that the variables are converted into their values. Without it, they would remain as variables.
Empty lines get discarded, not sure if there is a way to avoid that.
Make sure you don't put any spaces before the ">>" otherwise they will be there in your output file.

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