I read this thread: http://www.computing.net/answers/pr... This provided some clues but I'm stumped and I figure this is something you gurus can do in 2 seconds. What I need is a batch file that can process all of the .txt files in a folder (relative path is OK) and do the following: Take the 7th line of the text file, then take every 8th line thereafter, and put it in a new text file (per input text file). So, sample.txt would have something like: Junk stuff a b c d e f g junky stuffs born in the usa t u v w x y z ! Should output a sample.modified.txt file that would simply say e usa ! I'm trying to learn this by reading the posts but it seems like I'm getting ahead of myself and should start somewhere more newbie, but I need this ASAP. Any takers? Thanks in advance. -UM

BEWARE: not tested @echo off & setlocal for %%i in (*.txt) do ( set cnt=1 set out=%%~dpni for /F "delims=" %%j in ('type "%%i"') do ( call :EXT %%j ) ) goto :EOF :EXT set /A cnt+=1 if %cnt% neq 8 goto :EOF set cnt=0 echo.%*>> "%out%-new.txt" goto :EOF :: End_Of_Batch

You loose any '!' in your file. Such is the price of delayed expansion. SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION SET /a i = 2 FOR /F "delims=" %%a IN (sample.txt) DO @( SET /a i = (!i! %% 8^) + 1 IF !i! == 1 ECHO.%%a )>>sample.modified.txt EDIT: VVVVV Well, it's the way I prefer, but on this site I tend to go with the more condensed version.

Just for that issue I used the internal subroutine way, to avoid the delayed expansion, as we run under NT/4.0

Hey guys- I really appreciate your quick responses and efforts so far. I tried both scripts but it looks like they only pull the 8th line one time, instead of *every* 8th line. The desired output is the 7th, then the 15th, 23rd, 31st, 39th, ..., nth. The exclamation point was actually just an example and I will not need them, so delayed expansion is ok. I will try to look into this myself in a few hours, but I have to drive 2 hours to work right now. -UM

I was able to modify IVO's code for my purposes. Here is the final product: @echo off & setlocal for %%i in (*.txt) do ( set cnt=1 set out=%%~dpni for /F "delims=" %%j in ('type "%%i"') do ( call :EXT %%j ) ) goto :EOF :EXT set pass=6 set /A cnt+=1 if %cnt% neq %pass% goto :EOF set cnt=0 echo.%*>> "%out%-new.txt" set /A pass+=8 goto :EOF :: End_Of_Batch Adding this additional variable and modifications allowed me to cherry-pick the lines I needed. Thanks again all for your help; consider this resolved.