Save command output to variable

Question

In a batch file, I am trying to fetch the output of a command and save it to a variable.

The goal of my command is to count the number of folders in a certain folder.

I can't use the trick provided in this accepted answer because I would have to do cd path\to\my\folder to get to the current directory. Unfortunately, I can't do this command because path\to\my\folder is in fact a UNC path (\\path\to\my\folder), and cd \\some\UNC\path is not supported by the windows cmd.
I am aware of this answer but I don't want to use a temporary file.

So I tried to do the following:

To obtain the number of folders, I use:
```
dir \\path\to\my\folder | find /c "<REP>"
```
This works fine and returning me a number as I would expect.
To retrieve the output of this command in a batch variable, I tried:
```
FOR /F "TOKENS=*" %%i IN ('\\path\to\my\folder | find /c "<REP>"') DO 
SET value = %%i
```
But without success, the error message being...

| was unexpected.

...when I execute the batch file and...

%%i was unexpected.

when I try to execute the command directly in a command window. I tried to escape the quotes around the <REP> string (...find /c ""<REP>""') DO...), got me the same error.

Am I on the right path to retrieve the output in a variable? What should I do to resolve the error message?
Or maybe there is a simpler way to set a command output in a variable?

Addressing the issues you've encountered: 1) | should be escaped in that context like this: ^|, and 2) %%i is only used in batch files, and %i is its counterpart for using directly at the command prompt. — Andriy M
– Andriy M, Commented Nov 17, 2011 at 17:50

Joey · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-17 11:26:05Z

4

You can use the answer you first mentioned. You don't have to cd there, but you can use pushd which will allocate a temporary drive letter for UNC paths which will be released when you do a popd.

So in essence:

pushd \\server\path
set count=0
for /d %%x in (*) do set /a count+=1
popd

answered Nov 17, 2011 at 11:26

Joey

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