DOS Batch - Find and Replace

for Windows10,Windows8,Windows7,VISTA,
XP,NT,Server 2000,Server 2003,Server 2008

Search a file and replace all occurrences of a string with another string.

Description:

This batch allows string substitution in a text file. It parses each line of a text file for a particular string and replaces it with another string.
I.e. To replace all occurrences of "Yellow Submarine" in "color.txt" with "uboot" and put the output on the screen run:
BatchSubstitute.bat "Yellow Submarine" uboot color.txt
Or
type color.txt|BatchSubstitute.bat "Yellow Submarine" uboot

Optionally pipe the output into a new file, i.e.
BatchSubstitute.bat "Yellow Submarine" uboot color.txt>newfile.txt
Or
type color.txt|BatchSubstitute.bat "Yellow Submarine" uboot>newfile.txt

Note: Due to the nature of the FOR command and string substitution, the following known restrictions apply:

Lines starting with "]" character will end up empty
OldStr must not start with "*"
Lines must not contain any of the following characters within a quoted string: "&<>|^", as discussed in this post.

Script:

Download: BatchSubstitute.bat

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. @echo off REM -- Prepare the Command Processor -- SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS SETLOCAL DISABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION ::BatchSubstitude - parses a File line by line and replaces a substring" ::syntax: BatchSubstitude.bat OldStr NewStr File :: OldStr [in] - string to be replaced :: NewStr [in] - string to replace with :: File [in] - file to be parsed :$changed 20100115 :$source https://www.dostips.com if "%~1"=="" findstr "^::" "%~f0"&GOTO:EOF for /f "tokens=1,* delims=]" %%A in ('"type %3|find /n /v """') do ( set "line=%%B" if defined line ( call set "line=echo.%%line:%~1=%~2%%" for /f "delims=" %%X in ('"echo."%%line%%""') do %%~X ) ELSE echo. )

Script Output:

Script Output

C:>type BatchSubstitute.txt
!!! THIS TEST DOESN`T REPLACE ANYTHING, IT JUST MAKES SURE
!!! THE SCRIPT WORKS FOR SPECIAL CHARACTERS.
!!! THE SCRIPT WOULD NOT WORK IF ANY OF THE CHARACTERs &<>|^ WOULD
!!! APPEAR WITHIN A QUOTED STRING
Next line is empty

this > is a grater-than character
this < is a less-than character
this ( is a opening bracket character
this ) is a closing bracket character
this % is a percent character
this & is an ampersand character
this ! is an exclamation character
this " is a quote character
this | is a vertical character
this ^ is a up character
this is a "quoted string"
this is a %percented string%
this is a !exclamationed string!
a "quoted ( opening bracket"
a "quoted ) closing bracket"
a "quoted % quote character"
a "quoted ! quote character"
a "quoted " quote character"

C:>BatchSubstitute.bat Oldtext Newtext BatchSubstitute.txt
!!! THIS TEST DOESN`T REPLACE ANYTHING, IT JUST MAKES SURE
!!! THE SCRIPT WORKS FOR SPECIAL CHARACTERS.
!!! THE SCRIPT WOULD NOT WORK IF ANY OF THE CHARACTERs &<>|^ WOULD
!!! APPEAR WITHIN A QUOTED STRING
Next line is empty

this > is a grater-than character
this < is a less-than character
this ( is a opening bracket character
this ) is a closing bracket character
this % is a percent character
this & is an ampersand character
this ! is an exclamation character
this " is a quote character
this | is a vertical character
this ^ is a up character
this is a "quoted string"
this is a %percented string%
this is a !exclamationed string!
a "quoted ( opening bracket"
a "quoted ) closing bracket"
a "quoted % quote character"
a "quoted ! quote character"
a "quoted " quote character"