Question

I want to store a URL prefix in an Windows environment variable. The ampersands in the query string makes this troublesome though.

For example: I have a URL prefix of http://example.com?foo=1&bar= and want to create a full URL by providing a value for the bar parameter. I then want to launch that URL using the ‘start’ command.

Adding quotes around the value for the SET operation is easy enough:

set myvar='http://example.com?foo=1&bar=' 

Windows includes the quotes in the actual value though (thanks Windows!):

echo %myvar% 'http://example.com?foo=1&bar=true' 

I know that I can strip quotes away from batch file arguments by using tilde:

echo %~1 

However, I can’t seem to do it to named variables:

echo %~myvar% %~myvar% 

What’s the syntax for accomplishing this?

Answer 1

This is not a limitation of the environment variable, but rather the command shell.

Enclose the entire assignment in quotes:

set 'myvar=http://example.com?foo=1&bar=' 

Though if you try to echo this, it will complain as the shell will see a break in there.

You can echo it by enclosing the var name in quotes:

echo '%myvar%' 

Or better, just use the set command to view the contents:

set myvar