How do I increment a value in a textfile using the regular Windows command-line?

Question

I'd like to keep a "compile-counter" for one of my projects. I figured a quick and dirty way to do this would be to keep a textfile with a plain number in it, and then simply call upon a small script to increment this each time I compile.

How would I go about doing this using the the regular Windows command-line?

I don't really feel like installing some extra shell to do this but if you have any other super simple suggestions that would accomplish just this, they're naturally appreciated aswell.

Answer 1

It would be an new shell (but I think it is worth it), but from PowerShell it would be

[int](get-content counter.txt) + 1 | out-file counter.txt

Answer 2

If you don't mind running a Microscoft Windows Based Script then this jscript will work OK. just save it as a .js file and run it from dos with "wscript c:/script.js".

var fso, f, fileCount;
var ForReading = 1, ForWriting = 2;   
var filename = "c:\\testfile.txt";
fso = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");

//create file if its not found
if (! fso.FileExists(filename))
{
  f = fso.OpenTextFile(filename, ForWriting, true);
  f.Write("0");
  f.Close();
}

f = fso.OpenTextFile(filename, ForReading);
fileCount = parseInt(f.ReadAll());

//make sure the input is a whole number
if (isNaN(fileCount))
{
    fileCount = 0;  
}

fileCount = fileCount + 1;

f = fso.OpenTextFile(filename, ForWriting, true);
f.Write(fileCount);
f.Close();

Answer 3

You can try a plain old batchfile.

@echo off
for /f " delims==" %%i in (counter.txt) do set /A temp_counter= %%i+1
echo %temp_counter% > counter.txt

assuming the count.bat and counter.txt are located in the same directory.

Answer 4

I'd suggest just appending the current datetime of the build to a log file.

date >> builddates.txt

That way you get a build count via the # of lines, and you may also get some interesting statistics if you can be bothered analysing the dates and times later on.

The extra size & time to count the number of lines in the file will be insignificant unless you are doing seriously fast project iterations!