I wish to look in a directory at all the .txt files and extract the lines within the file that starts with A10:@. Utilmatley I really only want the first 16 characters after the @ symbol not the entire line. The 17th character after the @ is always a * so I could just extract and write to a file the data between A10:@ and *. The input file has lines which are similair to C36: 0.00C35: 2.00C34: 7.00C39: 0.00C38: A10:@+.1803 +.0221 *SKIP *SKIP D;0:@+.000 C36: 0.00C35: 2.00C34: 7.00C39: 0.00C38: A10:@+.1798 +.0221 *SKIP *SKIP D;0:@+.000000+.000000+.000000 The output should look like this +.1803 +.0221 +.1798 +.0221 The following code almost worked ============================================== @echo off > newfile.txt & setLocal enableDELAYedexpansion for /f "tokens=1,2* delims= " %%i in ('FINDSTR "A10:@" *.txt') do (echo %%i %%j >> newfile.txt) ================================================ the above code outputted file1.txt:A10:@+.1803 +.0221 file2.txt:A10:@+.1798 +.0221 which is almost correct. It appened the file name to the front of the row. So now I need to extract the first variable stating at 16 for a length of 6. I thought I can now use the call set %var to strip the first portion out something like the following =========== @echo off > newfile.txt & setLocal enableDELAYedexpansion for /f "tokens=1,2* delims= " %%i in ('FINDSTR "A10:@" *.txt') do (call set substring=%%i:~16,6%% echo %substring% %%j >> newfile.txt) =========== This generated the following +.0221 +.0221 The code alomost worked but it lost the first variable substring all together. I muist be using the call set substring wrong. Please help, and thanks in advance, Fro

No need to use substrings, the for loop is able to take care of it in this case. "tokens=1* delims=@" %%i in ('FINDSTR /b "A10:@" *.txt') Use %%j.

Thanks for yor help. I tried a variety of code using what you stated. Every version except one did not have anything in the resualnt file. The one that was different had the entire line after the @ symbol. Recall all I want is the first two columns. However only the portion after the @ symbol on the first line. Input data A10:@+.1803 +.0221 *SKIP *SKIP I only want +.1803 +.0221 Please help again...

Hi Fro-Dawg This what you want @echo off for /f "tokens=1-3 delims=@*" %%a in (Data.txt) do ( if "%%a" EQU "A10:" echo %%b ) >> New.txt ]

dtech10, Thanks for your help that is excatly what I was looking for, for one file; however I was trying to do this to all the files in the current subdirectory that has a txt extension. I tried to added " > new.txt & setLocal enableDELAYedexpansion" after the echo statement and changed "data.txt" to "*.txt" as I had in an earlier attempts but it did not work The system cannot find the file *.txt came across the screen. And there was nothing in the "new.txt" file. Could you please help again. thanks in advance, Fro-dawg

Hi Fro-Dawg This what you want I given the file the extension .dat so it do'es not get picked up by the first for loop. You can rename later if required. @echo off type nul > new.dat for %%a in (*.txt) do ( for /f "tokens=1-3 delims=@*" %%b in ('type "%%a"') do ( if "%%b" EQU "A10:" echo %%c >> new.dat ))

Yes Dtech10 this is excatly what I needed thank you very much!!