Help with DOS script (grab specific data from a file)

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Help with DOS script (grab specific data from a file)

Hey Guys,

I need to grab just the md5 value from a file and make it a variable which I can use to compare to another md5 value. The problem is this file looks like this:

a7393f772e34ca16a5854e80d9ec6704 md5

How do I open the file and only grab the actual number in DOS? (Not the "md5" And set it as a variable?

Thanks!

+1 A:

There's no way to do that with a batch file on MSDOS. However, an NT/W2K/XP/etc. batch file can do it this way:

for /F "tokens=1" %%A in (md5list.txt) do set result=%%A
echo result is %result%

wallyk 2009-11-14 04:27:51

Thanks Wallyk. I am running this as a .bat file, doesn't that use MS-DOS? I will be running this in a Win2003 env. I put your command in a .bat file and ran it and this was the output:C:\ipod>test.batC:\ipod>for /F "tokens=1" %A in (file.txt) do set result=%AC:\ipod>set result={\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0\deflang1033{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\fcharset0C:\ipod>set result={\*\generatorC:\ipod>set result=}C:\ipod>echo result is }result is }

Steve 2009-11-14 04:37:30

No, it won't use MSDOS unless you invoke command.com, and even then it's not really MSDOS.It looks like file.txt isn't formatted as expected.

wallyk 2009-11-14 04:42:56

@Steve: It appears as though your file.txt file is in fact an .rtf format file. Save it as plain text and try again.

Greg Hewgill 2009-11-14 04:45:17

That was it guys! Thanks so much for the help!

Steve 2009-11-14 04:55:42

I have one problem, my file never uses the same name so I cannot use a text file like list.txt. We automatically download two files a .dat file and a .md5 file. Both of them have a unique filename which changes everytime (V2,V3,etc). Essentially I run the .dat file through an md5 app and it produces the correct md5 which I want to compare to the .md5 file (after I grep out just the number) But when I tried to run the script with the solution you provided I just changed the (list.txt) to (*.md5) but it failed. Any other way to grep out the number using an *.md5 file in your solution?

Steve 2009-11-17 03:19:20

I just tested and if I specify the entire .md5 filename it works fine but is it possible to use a wildcard with this command? This will be the only md5 file in the directory.

Steve 2009-11-17 03:22:08

If you know you've only got one .md5 file in the subdirectory, why not just rename it first : REN *.md5 list.txtThis will work fine providing there's just one .md5 there.

Sam 2009-11-18 17:16:43

ansaurus

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Help with DOS script (grab specific data from a file)

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