Question

I have two batch files which is used to run a large C++ build, the first one starts the processes, creating directories and figuring out what to send to the second script. If certain information is presented to the first script, I have a routine that pops up a window and asks for a password. This is passed to the second script by calling the second script like this

call script2.bat -pw:myPassword

where myPassword is something the user entered.
now, i have been testing this script and one of my users password contains a semicolon, so we get this

call script2.bat -pw:my;Password

I found by putting in quotes I can get this into the second script OK

call script2.bat -pw:"my;Password"

However, the command line parsing breaks when I try to do this

for /F "tokens=1,2 delims=:" %%a in ( "%1" ) DO SET switch=%%a&value=%%b

if I echo %1 it shows like this

-pw:"my;Password"

But with echo on when the script runs I see

for /F "tokens=1,2 delims=:" %%a in ( "-pw:"my Password"" ) DO SET switch=%%a&value=%%b

and it parses as switch=-pw and value="my

What I eventually need is for value to contain my;Password so I can pass it to another program

Any ideas on how to get this to parse correctly

Here re 2 batch file that issulstrate the problem:

a.bat:

echo on

call b.bat -pw:eatme
call b.bat -pw:eat;me
call b.bat -pw:"eat;me"
call "b.bat -pw:\"eat;me\""

b.bat:

echo on

echo %1

for /F "tokens=1,2 delims=: " %%a in ( "%1" ) DO SET switch=%%a&SET value=%%b 

echo switch=%switch% 
echo value=%value%

Answer 1

I found a little trick to get around the way the shell is interpreting the value of “%1” in the FOR /F loop: instead of parsing the string, parse the output of the command ECHO %1, like this:

FOR /F "tokens=1,2 delims=:" %%a IN ( 'ECHO %1' ) DO ECHO Switch: %%a Value: %%b

This works if you put the password in quotes on the command line (call script2.bat -pw="my;password"), so we’ll have to remove the quotes as follows:

SET VALUE=%VALUE:~1,-1%

So this is the code I came up with:

ECHO OFF

ECHO Arguments: %1

FOR /F "tokens=1,2 delims=:" %%a IN ( 'ECHO %1' ) DO (
    SET SWITCH=%%a
    SET VALUE=%%b
)

ECHO SWITCH: %SWITCH%

SET VALUE=%VALUE:~1,-1%
ECHO VALUE: %VALUE%

…which returns the following results:

Arugments: -pw:”my;Password”
SWITCH: -pw
VALUE: my;Password