how to programmatically escape percent signs %

[thebrenda]

I have a .bat file that passes in connection strings and password arguements to a java program. Any of these fields could have embedded percent signs. The values are entered by the client. I would like to programmatically search these fields and replace all % with %%. Below is an exmple where two arguments (uid and pwd) have embedded %. When the java program receives the arguments they are not as written in the dos batch file.

set uid="--uid=theb%renda"
set pwd="--pwd=pass%word1%234"

"%JAVA_HOME%" -classpath %CLASSPATH% javaprogram %uid% %pwd%

want to turn uid and pwd to this

set uid="--uid=theb%%renda"
set pwd="--pwd=pass%%word1%%234"

"%JAVA_HOME%" -classpath %CLASSPATH% javaprogram %uid% %pwd%

[jeb]

In this way you can't escape them later, as the percents signs are already lost in the definition lines.

But you could use a seond file to store the credentials and read them from batch

Your credential file would look like

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--uid=theb%renda
--pwd=pass%word1%234

And in your batch file you need

Code: Select all

< credential.key (
set /p uid=
set /p pwd=
)

"%JAVA_HOME%" -classpath %CLASSPATH% javaprogram "%uid%" "%pwd%"

It could be a good idea to use delayed expansion here, else you get problems with quotes and other special characters.
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion

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< credential.key (
set /p uid=
set /p pwd=
)

"%JAVA_HOME%" -classpath %CLASSPATH% javaprogram "!uid!" "!pwd!"

[thebrenda]

get problems with quotes and other special characters

Is there a list of special characters that will cause a problem, and how to escape them?

Also, is there not some code that can search within a variable for the special characters and replace them with the escape and special character?

I did not understand your response, sorry. My dos batch skills are not good.

[thebrenda]

Can anyone help? I need to remove any special characters that will cause a problem from my variable. I am willing to try any solutions. Anyone have a link or code examples?

[jeb]

Special characters are more or less

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<>|&"<>^!%

You can escape any character with a caret, only the percent can only be escaped with another percent.
Quotes toggles the mode of the following characters, all (but percent) are handled as normal characters.

Also, is there not some code that can search within a variable for the special characters and replace them with the escape and special character?

Yes, the syntax is

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%variable:search=replace%
or
!variable:search=replace!

The second sample uses delayed expansion instead of percent expansion.

So you could build something like this

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set var=cat^&dog
set var
echo "%var%"
echo %var:&=^&%

But it your sample this doesn't help

Code: Select all

set uid="--uid=theb%renda"
set pwd="--pwd=pass%word1%234"
set uid
set pwd

Output:
uid="--uid=thebrenda"
pwd="--pwd=pass234"

The set <variablename> lines shows simply the content of a variable without modify it.
So you can see here that in your variables isn't any percent, so there isn't anything left you can search and replace for.

[thebrenda]

starting a new thread. not getting far with this as I guess my original premise was flawed.