Windows batch - loop over folder string and parse out last folder name

Question

I need to grab the folder name of a currently executing batch file. I have been trying to loop over the current directory using the following syntax (which is wrong at present):

set mydir = %~p0
for /F "delims=\" %i IN (%mydir%) DO @echo %i

Couple of issues in that I cannot seem to pass the 'mydir' variable value in as the search string. It only seems to work if I pass in commands; I have the syntax wrong and cannot work out why.

My thinking was to loop over the folder string with a '\' delimiter but this is causing problems too. If I set a variable on each loop then the last value set will be the current folder name. For example, given the following path:

C:\Folder1\Folder2\Folder3\Archive.bat

I would expect to parse out the value 'Folder3'.

I need to parse that value out as its name will be part of another folder I am going to create further down in the batch file.

Many thanks if anyone can help. I may be barking up the wrong tree completely so any other approaches would be greatly received also.

Answer 1

In batch files in the FOR command you'll need to prepend %whatever with an extra % (e.g. %%whatever).

'echo %~p0' will print the currently directory of the batch file.

Answer 2

You were pretty close to it :) This should work:

@echo OFF
set mydir="%~p0"
SET mydir=%mydir:\=;%

for /F "tokens=* delims=;" %%i IN (%mydir%) DO call :LAST_FOLDER %%i
goto :EOF

:LAST_FOLDER
if "%1"=="" (
    @echo %LAST%
    goto :EOF
)

set LAST=%1
SHIFT

goto :LAST_FOLDER

For some reason the for command doesn't like '\' as a delimiter, so I converted all '\' to ';' first (SET mydir=%mydir:\=;%)

Answer 3

This is what we had in the end (little bit more crude and can only go so deep :)

@echo off
for /f "tokens=1-10 delims=\" %%A in ('echo %~p0') do (
    if NOT .%%A==. set new=%%A
    if NOT .%%B==. set new=%%B
    if NOT .%%C==. set new=%%C
    if NOT .%%D==. set new=%%D
    if NOT .%%E==. set new=%%E
    if NOT .%%F==. set new=%%F
    if NOT .%%G==. set new=%%G
    if NOT .%%H==. set new=%%H
    if NOT .%%I==. set new=%%I
    if NOT .%%J==. set new=%%J
)

@echo %new%

Answer 4

Slight alteration for if any of the folders have spaces in their names - replace space to ':' before and after operation:

set mydir="%~p0"
set mydir=%mydir:\=;%
set mydir=%mydir: =:%

for /F "tokens=* delims=;" %%i IN (%mydir%) DO call :LAST_FOLDER %%i
goto :EOF

:LAST_FOLDER
if "%1"=="" (
  set LAST=%LAST::= %
  goto :EOF
)

set LAST=%1
SHIFT

goto :LAST_FOLDER

Answer 5

I don't know if it's the version of windows I'm on (win2k3), but the FOR loop isn't giving me anything useful for trying to iterate through a single string. According to my observation (and the FOR /? info) you get one iteration for each line of input to FOR, and there is no way to change this to iterate within a line. You can break into multiple tokens for a given line, but it is only one invocation of the FOR loop body.

I do think the CALL :LABEL approach in these answers does a great job. Something I didn't know until looking at this was that ";" and "," are both recognized as argument separators. So once you replace backslashes with semicolons, you can call your label and iterate through with SHIFT.

So working off of what is posted by others here, I have the below solution. Instead of grabbing the last folder name, I actually wanted to find everything up until some known directory name.. this is what is implemented below.

@echo off
if "%1"=="" goto :USAGE

set FULLPATH=%~f1
set STOPDIR=%2
set PATHROOT=

:: Replace backslashes with semicolons
set FULLPATH=%FULLPATH:\=;%

:: Iterate through path (the semicolons cause each dir name to be a new argument)
call :LOOP %FULLPATH%
goto :EOF

:LOOP

::Exit loop if reached the end of the path, or the stop dir
if "%1"=="" (goto :EOF)
if "%1"=="%STOPDIR%" (goto :EOF)

::If this is the first segment of the path, set value directly. Else append.
if not defined PATHROOT (set PATHROOT=%1) else (set PATHROOT=%PATHROOT%\%1)

::shift the arguments - the next path segment becomes %i
SHIFT

goto :LOOP

:USAGE
echo Usage:
echo %~0 ^<full path to parse^> ^<dir name to stop at^>
echo E.g. for a command:
echo %~0 c:\root1\child1\child2 child2
echo The value of c:\root1\child1 would be assigned to env variable PATHROOT

Answer 6

This question's a little old, but I've looked for a solution more than once so here's a completely new take on it that I've just put together.

The trick is that we take the desired path, back up one level to create a folder mask for substitution and then replace the folder mask with nothing.

To test it, simple copy and paste into a command script (.cmd) in any directory, then run it. It will spit out only the deepest directory you're currently in.

Notes:

• Replace %~dp0 with whatever path you like (as it is, it will return the deepest folder the batch file is run from. This is not the same as %cd%.)
• When specifying the 'pathtofind' variable ensure there are no quotes e.g. c:\some path and not "c:\some path".
• The original idea for folder masking is mine
• Spaces in the path are no problem
• Folder depth is not a problem
• It was made possible by the genius of this batch scripting tip http://www.dostips.com/DtCodeBatchFiles.php#Batch.FindAndReplace

Hope this helps someone else!

Thanks,

John D

@echo off
set pathtofind=%~dp0
if not exist %pathtofind% echo Path does not exist&pause>nul&goto :eof

cd /d %pathtofind%
set path1=%cd%
cd ..
set path2=%cd%

call set "path3=%%path1:%path2%\=%%"

echo %path3%

pause>nul

Answer 7

Unfortunatelly, this is working great only when put on some depth but have problems with being on the very top of the mountain... Putting this program into "C:\Windows" e.g. will result with... "C:\Windows", not expected "Windows". Still great job, and still damage can be repaired. My approach:

@echo off
set pathtofind=%~dp0
if not exist %pathtofind% echo Path does not exist&pause>nul&goto :eof

cd /d %pathtofind%
set path1=%cd%
cd ..
set path2=%cd%
set path4=%~dp1
call set "path3=%%path1:%path2%\=%%"
call set "path5=%%path3:%path4%*\=%%"
echo %path5%

pause>nul

And it's working just fine for me now, thanks for the idea, I was looking for something like that for some time.

jeth

Answer 8

Sheesh guys, what a mess. This is pretty easy, and it's faster to do this in memory without CD.

This gets the last two directories of a path. Modify it as required to get the last tokens of any line. My original code I based this on has more complexity for my own purposes.

Fyi, this probably doesn't allow paths with exclamation marks since I'm using enabledelayedexpansion, but that could be fixed.

It also won't work on a plain drive root. This could be averted in a number of ways. Check what the input path ends with, or a counter, or modifying the token and check behaviour, etc.

@echo off&setlocal enableextensions,enabledelayedexpansion

call :l_truncpath "C:\Windows\temp"

----------

:l_truncpath
set "_pathtail=%~1"
:l_truncpathloop
for /f "delims=\ tokens=1*" %%x in ("!_pathtail!") do (
if "%%y"=="" (
set "_result=!_path!\!_pathtail!"
echo:!_result!
exit/b
)
set "_path=%%x"
set "_pathtail=%%y"
)
goto l_truncpathloop