Batch equivalent of Bash backticks

Question

When working with Bash, I can put the output of one command into another command like so:

my_command `echo Test`

would be the same thing as

my_command Test

(Obviously, this is just a non-practical example.)

I'm just wondering if you can do the same thing in Batch.

Answer 1

Probably not. The cmd.exe shell doesn't have as many features as bash. However, you may check out powershell as it's pretty exciting in comparison to bash (when it comes to Windows scripting).

Answer 2

You can do it by redirecting the output to a file first. For example:

echo zz > bla.txt
set /p VV=<bla.txt
echo %VV%

Answer 3

You can get a similar functionality using cmd.exe scripts with the for /f command:

for /f "usebackq tokens=*" %%a in (`echo Test`) do my_command %%a

Yeah, it's kinda non-obvious (to say the least), but it's what's there.

See for /? for the gory details.

Sidenote: I thought that to use "echo" inside the backticks in a "for /f" command would need to be done using "cmd.exe /c echo Test" since echo is an internal command to cmd.exe, but it works in the more natural way. Windows batch scripts always surprise me somehow (but not usually in a good way).

Answer 4

You could always run bash inside windows. I do it all the time with MSys (much more efficient than Cygwin).

Answer 5

Read the documentation for the "for" command: for /?

Sadly I'm not logged in to Windows to check it myself, but I think something like this can approximate what you want:

for /F %i in ('echo Test') do my_command %i