Question

Why gives the following Windows 7 .cmd command script:

set SUN_JAVA_HOME=C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.6.0_17

if 3==3 (
 set JAVA_HOME=%SUN_JAVA_HOME%
)
echo ready

The following error message instead of printing “ready”

\Java\jdk1.6.0_17 was unexpected at this time.

The error message disapears, if I remove the “(x86)” in the path name.

Answer 1

The problem is the parentheses grouping after the if 3==3 part.

While parsing the set JAVA_HOME=%SUN_JAVA_HOME% command, the interpreter immediately replaces the %SUN_JAVA_HOME% variable and that causes an early match of the closing parenthesis in (386).

This can be avoided if you enable delayed expansion and replace %SUN_JAVA_HOME% with !SUN_JAVA_HOME!:

setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

set SUN_JAVA_HOME=C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.6.0_17

if 3==3 (
    set JAVA_HOME=!SUN_JAVA_HOME!
)
echo ready