Hi I am trying to edit a text file from a .bat file and can't seem to find a command that can crop the ends of the text string. The other solution would be to write the data to the screen and then manipulate it, but again i have not been able to accomplish this. Any help would be greatly apprereciated.

You cannot edit a text file from a DOS batch file, unless you have some utility that would enable you to do this (BTW, I don't know of one). Exactly what are you trying to do, and why from a batch file? Cheers, Mac

Strip the first character, which happens to be a known delimiter, using ECHO: ECHO;ABC ECHO:ABC ECHO,ABC ECHO.ABC ECHO=ABC ECHO+ABC ECHO[ABC ECHO]ABC ECHO/ABC ECHO\ABC will all display ABC Strip any character anywhere in the string using CHOICE (MS-DOS 6 and later, Windows NT/2000 with the Resource Kit): IF "%1"=="Loop" GOTO Loop SET KEY=[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\SCSI] ECHO ]¦ CHOICE /C:;%KEY%;] %0 Loop > TEMP.BAT CALL TEMP.BAT ECHO Registry key is: %KEY% GOTO End :Loop REM Strips square brackets from KEY variable SHIFT IF "%1"=="]" GOTO End IF NOT "%1"=="[" SET KEY=%KEY%%1 GOTO Loop :End This may not work if your CHOICE version's output cannot be redirected, as in some Dutch Windows 98 versions. Strip both leading and trailing double quotes in Windows 95 /98, using FOR: FOR %%A IN ("A B C") DO SET STRING=%%A ECHO.%STRING% will display A B C Or use NT's SET's parameter substitution to replace characters in a string: SET STRING=[ABCDEFG] SET NEWSTRING=%STRING:[=% SET STRING=%NEWSTRING:]=% ECHO String: %STRING% will display String: ABCDEFG or SET STRING=[ABCDEFG] SET NEWSTRING=%STRING:[=(% SET STRING=%NEWSTRING:]=)% ECHO String: %STRING% will display String: (ABCDEFG) or SET STRING=[ABCDEFG] SET NEWSTRING=%STRING:~1,7% ECHO String: %NEWSTRING% will display String: ABCDEFG FROM http://www.robvanderwoude.com/ ftp://ftp.filegate.net/pub/bfds/batpwr04.zip ftp://ftp.filegate.net/pub/bfds/bat-tnt.zip ftp://ftp.filegate.net/pub/bfds/batpwr03.zip ftp://ftp.filegate.net/pub/bfds/batpwr01.zip ftp://ftp.filegate.net/pub/bfds/batpwr1b.zip ftp://ftp.filegate.net/pub/bfds/batpwr1a.zip ftp://ftp.filegate.net/pub/bfds/batpwr1c.zip ftp://ftp.filegate.net/pub/bfds/batpwr02.zip http://home7.inet.tele.dk/batfiles/ http://www.fpschultze.de/batstuff.html GOOD LUCK

Well, I assumed he wanted to edit the file using a batch file as a command. If you're gonna use CHOICE (requiring user input), why not use a text editor (edit, etc.) in the first place? Or am I missing something here... Cheers, Mac