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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-13T03:39:43+00:00

I am getting this error when I am trying to parse XML from batch

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I am getting this error when I am trying to parse XML from batch Script

 error : 
 < was unexpected at this time.

xml:

<driver type=".dbdriver">
        <attributes>localhost;1521;XE;false</attributes>
        <driverType>Oracle thin</driverType>
      </driver>
      <password>7ECE6B7E7D2AF514C55BAE8B3A6B51E7</password>
      <user>JR</user>

batch scrpit:

for /f "tokens=3 delims=><" %%j in ('type %SETTINGSPATH% ^| find "<user>"') do set user=%%j

This code is supposed to read user value from XML which is just “JR” and on some machines I am getting this values; but some machines are not showing this value and showing this error.

Please guide.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Parsing XML with batch is often problematic and always risky. A valid XML documented could be legitamately reformatted in any number of ways that would break you parser. But if you really want to continue to use batch…

    That error message occurs when you have an unescaped and unquoted < character in your IN() clause. The "<user>" is already quoted, so that normally should not be a problem. The problem must stem from the value contained in %SETTINGSPATH%. Either the value must have an unquoted and unescaped <, or there must be an odd number of quotes in the value. The odd number of quotes would cause the <user> to no longer be quoted.

    The only other possibility is that you have not shown us all your code, and the error is occuring someplace else.

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