Why is escaping exclamation marks not necessary in parameter of `for /F` or `for /R`?

by

The options of FOR, IF and REM are only parsed up to the special character phase.
Or better the commands are detected in the special character phase and a different parser is activated then.

Therefore it’s not possible to use delayed expansion nor FOR-Parameter in the options.

These tests fail with errors

for /F %%O in ("defined") do (
  if %%O var echo yes
)

set option=defined
if !option! var echo yes

This seems to work, but uses the wrong delimiters (D, e, i, l, m, s, y and ! )

set "myDelims=123"
for /F "tokens=1,2 delims=!myDelims!" %%A in ("Hello 1 world") do (
    echo Token1=%%A  Token2=%%B
)

And for REM

set "help=/?"
REM !HELP!  - No help will be shown

More Related Contents:

  1. What does “&&” do in this batch file?
  2. Command Prompt Separation of text by Character [closed]
  3. What are the undocumented features and limitations of the Windows FINDSTR command?
  4. Where does GOTO :EOF return to?
  5. What are the ERRORLEVEL values set by internal cmd.exe commands?
  6. At which point does `for` or `for /R` enumerate the directory (tree)?
  7. Displaying Windows command prompt output and redirecting it to a file
  8. Iterate all files in a directory using a ‘for’ loop
  9. Defining and using a variable in batch file
  10. Which cmd.exe internal commands clear the ERRORLEVEL to 0 upon success?
  11. Error: “is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file”
  12. Logical operators (“and”, “or”) in DOS batch
  13. using batch echo with special characters
  14. How to set a variable inside a loop for /F
  15. How to create empty text file from a batch file?
  16. How can a batch file run a program and set the position and size of the window?
  17. How to search and replace a string that have an equal-to sign “=” inside
  18. Arithmetic operations with HH:MM:SS times in batch file
  19. How do I compare timestamps of files in a batch script?
  20. Batch File: Typewriter Effect
  21. How can I use a .bat file to remove specific tokens from the PATH environment variable?
  22. Running Windows batch file commands asynchronously
  23. Open a URL without using a browser from a batch file
  24. How to automatically close cmd window after batch file execution?
  25. Does Windows batch support exception handling?
  26. Get java version from batch file
  27. Set a path variable with spaces in the path in a Windows .cmd file or batch file
  28. Batch file and DEL errorlevel 0 issue
  29. How do I create a batch file timer to execute / call another batch throughout the day
  30. To “Call” or “Not to Call” a batch file?

Leave a Comment