I have a FOR loop in a Batch Script on XP Pro. FOR /L %%A IN (1 1 %engine_instance%) DO ( type %logs_dir%\sim_engine_%%A.log | FIND "Customers Processed This Run" > %logs_dir%\run_sim_temp_%%A.txt if errorlevel 1 goto FAIL for /F "tokens=1 delims= " %%Z in (%logs_dir%\run_sim_temp_%%A.txt) do ( set /A tot_accounts+=%%Z ) ) The problem I have is when the FOR is executed only once the tot_accounts variable is incorrect. Example when 10 is expected I get 8. I have initialized this variable to 0 at the beginning of the script and it is never used anywhere before this FOR loop. When the FOR loop is executed more than once the value is correct. So 5 and 5 for two loops gives 10. For one loop of 10, I see 8. When I echo the value before the FOR loop it correctly shows as 0. Any suggestions are welcome. Thank you. dss

ok, i may have a clue now. It appears that the %%Z value has leading zeros. Apparently this is a problem only the very first time tot_accounts is calculated. I manually removed the leading zeros from the text file before the FOR was executed and I got the correct value. Which brings up the next question - How do I remove leading zeros from the value before I use it for calculations? dss

ok, i seem to be replying to my own post..!!! I got a little more creative here: changed my FOR loop a bit: FOR /L %%A IN (1 1 %engine_instance%) DO ( type %logs_dir%\sim_engine_%%A.log | FIND "Customers Processed This Run" > %logs_dir%\run_sim_temp_%%A.txt if errorlevel 1 goto FAIL for /F "tokens=1 delims= " %%Z in (%logs_dir%\run_sim_temp_%%A.txt) do ( call :CALC_TOTALS %%Z ) ) and added this: :CALC_TOTALS set /a temp_accounts=1%1 - 1000000 set /a tot_accounts+=%temp_accounts% goto :EOF seems to work...!!! dss

"ok, i seem to be replying to my own post..!!!" :) the problem with leading zeros is that SET /A treats the num as octal. [Anybody's guess why.] I use this sub to 'unPAD' a num. ::== :unPAD :loop1 if '!str:~0^,1!'=='0' set str=!str:~1,99!& goto :loop1 goto :eof ===================================== If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2