Cmd.exe batch scripting. There seems to be a limit on the number of Tokens in a For loop of 31, is this so and can it be increased by any method?

C:\Users>for /? Runs a specified command for each file in a set of files. . . . . %i is explicitly declared in the for statement and the %j and %k are implicitly declared via the tokens= option. You can specify up to 26 tokens via the tokens= line, provided it does not cause an attempt to declare a variable higher than the letter 'z' or 'Z'. Remember, FOR variables are single-letter, case sensitive, global, and you can't have more than 52 total active at any one time. . . . . C:\Users>

Thankyou, yes I've read that but it doesn't quite fit the facts. All of the ASCII printable characters from ! (char 33) thru' ~ (char 126) can be used as variables although some must be Escaped. In the following script 31 tokens are specified and Ascii chars 91 thru' 95 are used to extract columns from the .csv file which is created in the first few lines of the script. I've been unable to expand the tokens past max 31 hence the query. @echo off cls setlocal enabledelayedexpansion for /l %%a in (1,1,80) do ( set column=!column!Col.%%a, ) set column=!column:~0,-1! echo !column!>%temp%\column.csv for /f "tokens=1-30* delims=," %%A in (%temp%\column.txt) do ( set column01-30=%%A,%%B,%%C,%%D,%%E,%%F,%%G,%%H,%%I,%%J,%%K,%%L,%%M,%%N,^ %%O,%%P,%%Q,%%R,%%S,%%T,%%U,%%V,%%W,%%X,%%Y,%%Z,%%[,%%\,%%],%%^^ set remainder=%%_ ) del %temp%\column.csv echo %column01-30% echo. echo %remainder%

if you call another batchfile, will it inherit the constraints prevailing on the calling batchfile? (f/e: if you've used all 31 tokens in batchfile "a", and you call batchfile "b", will batchfile "b" already used up 31 tokens or start from 0). If not, maybe try calling another batchfile, sending the current posn. in csv line, and "start from scratch". batchfile names might be variable by iincrementation of integer applied to batchname, if needing more than one sub-batch to do the job (ie, more than 32x2)

Nbrane Thank you for your input. At this stage I don't know if calling a second .bat file and "handing on" the current position is feasible but doubt it very much. Will investigate that another time. In order to progress into the csv record another For loop can be used but this time using the output written to the remainder variable as below. This allows editing of fields in a csv record regardless of how many fields there are, but I want (if possible) to increase the number of Tokens which can be used. The following script shows an example of Ascii characters being used as variables. @echo off cls setlocal enabledelayedexpansion :: Create csv file.. for /l %%a in (1,1,80) do ( set column=!column!Col.%%a, ) set column=%column:~0,-1% echo %column%>%temp%\column.csv :: Extract leading 30 columns.. for /f "tokens=1-30* delims=," %%^& in (%temp%\column.csv) do ( set column01-30=%%^&,%%',%%(,%%^),%%^*,%%+,%%,,%%-,%%.,%%/,%%0,%%1,%%2,^ %%3,%%4,%%5,%%6,%%7,%%8,%%9,%%:,%%;,%%^<,%%=,%%^>,%%?,%%@,%%A,%%B,%%C set remainder=%%D ) :: Extract columns 31 thru 60 for /f "tokens=1-30* delims=," %%^& in ("%remainder%") do ( set column31-60=%%^&,%%',%%(,%%^),%%^*,%%+,%%,,%%-,%%.,%%/,%%0,%%1,%%2,^ %%3,%%4,%%5,%%6,%%7,%%8,%%9,%%:,%%;,%%^<,%%=,%%^>,%%?,%%@,%%A,%%B,%%C set remains=%%D ) del %temp%\column.csv echo %column01-30% echo. echo %column31-60% echo. echo %remains%

I did a little tinkering. [w2k sp4] and the batch interpreter won't use a number greater than 31 for tokens. Oddly, it will use a 2 char var: for /f "tokens=1-31 delims=," %%1 in (column.csv) do ( echo %%22 ) LOL I think it boils down to using a sub to get tokens out past 31. ==================================== @echo off > newfile & setLocal enableDELAYedexpansion for /f "tokens=* delims=," %%a in (column.csv) do ( call :sub1 %%a ) goto :eof :sub1 :loop echo %1 shift if "%1" neq "" goto :loop goto :eof ===================================== Helping others achieve escape felicity M2

This calls a sub for each line in the CSV file. The sub then uses a goto-loop to echo one value from the comma-separated list in each iteration. (The for loop just separates the first value from the rest of the list.) I have a habit of using exit /b instead of goto :eof because it's more flexible, you can return an error code with exit /b if you want. for /f "delims=" %%L in (columns.csv) do ( call :parseLine %%L ) exit /b :parseLine setlocal set v=%1 :loop for /f "tokens=1* delims=," %%a in ("%v%") do ( echo %%a set v=%%b ) if not "%v%" == "" goto :loop endlocal exit /b