Question

A user will give me an absolute path – say “C:\src” (passed into %1 in the batch file). Then, I need to find the directory entitled “SQLScripts” that is in some subfolder of “C:\src”.

How can I find the absolute path to the “SQLScripts” directory? Also, I’m not worrying about multiple instances of the SQLScripts directory existing.

From my Googling, the solution may involve a for loop and some batch modifier such as %~$PATH:1. This link may be beneficial – Special Batch Characters.

All solutions need to work on Windows XP and above.
Note that I’m constrained to using a batch file, and can’t use other “easier” methods such as a simple Python code snippet to solve my problem.

Thanks!

Answer 1

This code saves the path to SQLScripts into %SQLSCRIPTSPATH% variable, and it works on WinXP:

DIR SQLScripts /B /P /S>tmp.txt
for /f "delims=" %%a in (tmp.txt) do set SQLSCRIPTSPATH=%%a
del tmp.txt

EDIT:

Better solution (without using a temporary file) suggested by Joe:

for /f "tokens=*" %%i in ('DIR SqlScripts /B /P /S') do SET SQLSCRIPTSPATH=%%i