MAKEMSI quickly and reliably creates MSI files in a non-programmatic way\Tips and TricksBatch FilesBatch File Tips and TricksReplace One String with Another

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Replace One String with Another

Environment variable substitution allows for string (or character) conversion, the syntax is pretty simple, type this from a command line:
echo PATHX: %PATH:c:=X:%

If you tried the above you would have seen that the contents of the "PATH" environment variable was echoed but with all "C:" strings replaced with "X:" (case insensitive match).

Note that there is a bug in this area, it will fail (badly) if the environment variable doesn't exist. For this reason I recommend adding and then stripping a character to the start of end of the environment variable or using the "if defined" syntax to only expand once you know it exists...

The following example demonstrates converting a string (in this case one double quote character) to an empty string "". The 3 steps are (a) Get value ensuring non-empty (b) Convert any double quotes (problematic in "if" statements) to empty strings. (c) Strip (SUBSTRING) off the leading character added in step "a".

set MMQ=!%1
set MMQ=%MMQ:"=%
set MMQ=%MMQ:~1%

The "Get File Safe Dates and Times" tip uses character replacement to replace "/" and ":" characters.

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