Replacing Characters in String

string windows batch-file character

53,407

Solution 1

You've got the = sign in the wrong place. Try:

setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
set /P MY_TEXT=ENTER TEXT:
SET T2P=P
set NEW_TEXT=%MY_TEXT:T=!T2P!%
MSG * %NEW_TEXT%

You can also do the expansion the other way round, i.e.

set NEW_TEXT=!MY_TEXT:T=%T2P%!

Solution 2

Try this

setlocal 
set string=cat rat mat fat
set string=%string:t=p%

53,407

LabRat

Updated on July 16, 2022

Comments

LabRat almost 2 years
I am trying to replace all instances of a character in a string of text with another character but I'm not succeeding.

Suppose the text is
```
cat rat mat fat
```
I want the script to replace all the t's to p's
```
cap rap map fap
```
What I have is the following but it seems to do little for me.
```
SET /P MY_TEXT=ENTER TEXT:

SET T2P=P

SET NEW_TEXT=%TEXT=:T!T2P!%

MSG * %NEW_TEXT%
```
- Claudio about 7 years
  
  Just the 2 cents for the for loop: - Look for instruction about using ! instead of % for variables.
LabRat over 11 years

Says that the batch operation is not recognised?
LabRat over 11 years

This now has a message box saying T=P which is not what I was after?
LabRat over 11 years

I see what whent wrong your reply says TEXt not MY-TEXT works now :)
Grhm over 11 years

sed is not recognised on windows unless you go out of your way to get it installed.
Admin over 11 years

ohh sorry my bad. If you have ruby you could invoke ruby -e 'puts ARGV[0].gsub("t","p")' "cat rat mat fat"
Lizz over 9 years

I found this technique very helpful, but found it doesn't work inside a FOR loop.
Grhm over 9 years

@Lizz: Variable expansion in a FOR loop can be tricky. The variables normally are expanded before the FOR loop begins, you can fix some issues by enabling delayed expansion, see robvanderwoude.com/variableexpansion.php for more details and worked examples. However, this technique is using delayed expansion already, so I'm not sure what you'd need to do to get it to work in a FOR loop. I suspect it depends on what the FOR loop is doing and how it does it.
Lizz over 9 years

Yeah, I used Rob's page but it didn't address this. I was lucky and could move your solution out of the FOR loop this time, but have no clue how it could be done inside a FOR loop. Tried a simple one and it broke. :(