Question

Why doesn’t this work?

@echo off

for /l %%i in (0, 1, 100) do (
    for /l %%j in (0, 1, 10) do (
        set /a curr=%%i*10 + %%j
        echo %curr%
    )
    echo "-----------------------------"
)

This is the output I get from this:

1010
1010
1010
1010
1010
1010
1010
1010
1010
1010
1010
"----------------------------"
1010
1010
1010
1010
1010
1010
1010
1010
...

It seems like it precomputes the math before executing, so that when it does finally execute, %curr% is already at 1010. How do I keep it from doing that? I’m trying to get output like this:

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
"----------------------------"
11
12
...

Thanks in advance

Answer from Johannes Rössel (for those who might look for it later):

@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion enableextensions

for /l %%i in (0, 1, 100) do (
    for /l %%j in (0, 1, 10) do (
        set /a curr=%%i*10+%%j
        echo !curr!
    )
    echo "-----------------------------"
)

Answer 1

Use delayed expansion by putting the following line before your loops:

setlocal enabledelayedexpansion enableextensions

And then use the environment variable as !curr! instead of %curr%.

You’re changing the contents of an environment variable within a block and use the changed content again in the same block. This can’t work without delayed expansion. The reason is that cmd expands variables like %foo% while parsing a command – and a command like if or for includes the block that may follow as well. Delayed expansion causes variables to be evaluated right before executing a command which is what you want here.

help set includes a description of what goes wrong without delayed expansion and works with it.