We have a batch file that outputs MAC addresses without any colons or dashes. I'm trying to write a small script that will simply add dashes for every third character in the string. I was attempting to do it in a FOR /F loop, but couldn't get the individual characters in %%a separated. An example of a MAC address we have would be: "0024e8919447" I would want to make it "00-24-e8-91-94-47" I have text files with ten to twenty MAC addresses each like this. I've done this with variables in the past, just never within a FOR /F loop. Is there a simpler way to do this? Thanks in advance for any help!

@echo off > newfile & setLocal enableDELAYedexpansion for /f "tokens=* delims= " %%a in (MAClist) do ( set s=%%a echo !s:~0,2!-!s:~2,2!-!s:~4,2!-!s:~6,2!-!s:~8,2!-!s:~10,2!>> newfile ) ===================================== If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2

here's a vbscript Set objFS = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") Set objArgs = WScript.Arguments strMAC = objArgs(0) For i=1 To Len(strMAC) Step 2 s=s & Mid(strMac,i,2)&"-" Next WScript.Echo Left(s,Len(s)-1) save it as mymac.vbs then on command line C:\test>cscript /nologo test.vbs 0024e8919447 00-24-e8-91-94-47 GNU win32 packages | Gawk

Mechanix2Go: As usual, your script worked like a charm! Thanks!!! ghostdog: I'm keeping as much of my stuff in batch for the time being, but I appreciate the VBS as well! I will definitely hang on to that for future use!! Thanks!