Read file contents into a variable:

    for /f &quot;delims=&quot; %%x in (version.txt) do set Build=%%x

or

    set /p Build=&lt;version.txt

Both will act the same with only a single line in the file, for more lines the `for` variant will put the *last* line into the variable, while `set /p` will use the *first.*

Using the variable – just like any other environment variable – it is one, after all:

    %Build%

So to check for existence:

    if exist \\fileserver\myapp\releasedocs\%Build%.doc ...

Although it may well be that no UNC paths are allowed there. Can&#39;t test this right now but keep this in mind.

You can read multiple variables from file like this:

    for /f &quot;delims== tokens=1,2&quot; %%G in (param.txt) do set %%G=%%H

where param.txt:

    PARAM1=value1
    PARAM2=value2
    ...

just do:

    type version.txt
and it will be displayed as if you typed:

    set /p Build=&lt;version.txt
    echo %Build%

To get all the lines of the file loaded into the variable, Delayed Expansion is needed, so do the following:

    SETLOCAL EnableDelayedExpansion

    for /f &quot;Tokens=* Delims=&quot; %%x in (version.txt) do set Build=!Build!%%x

There is a problem with some special characters, though especially `;`, `%` and `!`


We have a Git repository with over 400 commits, the first couple dozen of which were a lot of trial-and-error. We want to clean up these commits by squashing many down into a single commit. Naturally, git-rebase seems the way to go. My problem is that it ends up with merge conflicts, and these conflicts are not easy to resolve. I don&#39;t understand why there should be any conflicts at all, since I&#39;m just squashing commits (not deleting or rearranging). Very likely, this demonstrates that I&#39;m not completely understanding how git-rebase does its squashes.

Here&#39;s a modified version of the scripts I&#39;m using:

-----
repo_squash.sh (this is the script that is actually run):

-----

    rm -rf repo_squash
    git clone repo repo_squash
    cd repo_squash/
    GIT_EDITOR=../repo_squash_helper.sh git rebase --strategy theirs -i bd6a09a484b8230d0810e6689cf08a24f26f287a

-----
repo_squash_helper.sh (this script is used only by repo_squash.sh):

-----

    if grep -q &quot;pick &quot; $1
    then
    #  cp $1 ../repo_squash_history.txt
    #  emacs -nw $1
      sed -f ../repo_squash_list.txt &lt; $1 &gt; $1.tmp
      mv $1.tmp $1
    else
      if grep -q &quot;initial import&quot; $1
      then
        cp ../repo_squash_new_message1.txt $1
      elif grep -q &quot;fixing bad import&quot; $1
      then
        cp ../repo_squash_new_message2.txt $1
      else
        emacs -nw $1
      fi
    fi

-----
repo_squash_list.txt: (this file is used only by repo_squash_helper.sh)

-----

    # Initial import
    s/pick $251a190$/squash \1/g
    # Leaving &quot;Needed subdir&quot; for now
    # Fixing bad import
    s/pick $46c41d1$/squash \1/g
    s/pick $5d7agf2$/squash \1/g
    s/pick $3da63ed$/squash \1/g

-----

I&#39;ll leave the &quot;new message&quot; contents to your imagination. Initially, I did this without the &quot;--strategy theirs&quot; option (i.e., using the default strategy, which if I understand the documentation correctly is recursive, but I&#39;m not sure which recursive strategy is used), and it also didn&#39;t work. Also, I should point out that, using the commented out code in repo_squash_helper.sh, I saved off the original file that the sed script works on and ran the sed script against it to make sure it was doing what I wanted it to do (it was). Again, I don&#39;t even know why there *would* be a conflict, so it wouldn&#39;t seem to matter so much which strategy is used. Any advice or insight would be helpful, but mostly I just want to get this squashing working.

Updated with extra information from discussion with Jefromi:
---

Before working on our massive &quot;real&quot; repository, I used similar scripts on a test repository. It was a very simple repository and the test worked cleanly.

The message I get when it fails is:

    Finished one cherry-pick.
    # Not currently on any branch.
    nothing to commit (working directory clean)
    Could not apply 66c45e2... Needed subdir

This is the first pick after the first squash commit. Running `git status` yields a clean working directory. If I then do a `git rebase --continue`, I get a very similar message after a few more commits. If I then do it again, I get another very similar message after a couple dozen commits. If I do it yet again, this time it goes through about a hundred commits, and yields this message:

    Automatic cherry-pick failed.  After resolving the conflicts,
    mark the corrected paths with &#39;git add &lt;paths&gt;&#39;, and
    run &#39;git rebase --continue&#39;
    Could not apply f1de3bc... Incremental

If I then run `git status`, I get:

    # Not currently on any branch.
    # Changes to be committed:
    #   (use &quot;git reset HEAD &lt;file&gt;...&quot; to unstage)
    #
    # modified:   repo/file_A.cpp
    # modified:   repo/file_B.cpp
    #
    # Unmerged paths:
    #   (use &quot;git reset HEAD &lt;file&gt;...&quot; to unstage)
    #   (use &quot;git add/rm &lt;file&gt;...&quot; as appropriate to mark resolution)
    #
    # both modified:      repo/file_X.cpp
    #
    # Changed but not updated:
    #   (use &quot;git add/rm &lt;file&gt;...&quot; to update what will be committed)
    #   (use &quot;git checkout -- &lt;file&gt;...&quot; to discard changes in working directory)
    #
    # deleted:    repo/file_Z.imp

The &quot;both modified&quot; bit sounds weird to me, since this was just the result of a pick. It&#39;s also worth noting that if I look at the &quot;conflict&quot;, it boils down to a single line with one version beginning it with a [tab] character, and the other one with four spaces. This sounded like it might be an issue with how I&#39;ve set up my config file, but there&#39;s nothing of the sort in it. (I did note that core.ignorecase is set to true, but evidently git-clone did that automatically. I&#39;m not completely surprised by that considering that the original source was on a Windows machine.)

If I manually fix file_X.cpp, it then fails shortly afterward with another conflict, this time between a file (CMakeLists.txt) that one version thinks should exist and one version thinks shouldn&#39;t. If I fix this conflict by saying I do want this file (which I do), a few commits later I get another conflict (in this same file) where now there&#39;s some rather non-trivial changes. It&#39;s still only about 25% of the way through the conflicts.

I should also point out, since this might be very important, that this project started out in an svn repository. That initial history very likely was imported from that svn repository.

Update #2:
----

On a lark (influenced by Jefromi&#39;s comments), I decided to do the change my repo_squash.sh to be:

    rm -rf repo_squash
    git clone repo repo_squash
    cd repo_squash/
    git rebase --strategy theirs -i bd6a09a484b8230d0810e6689cf08a24f26f287a

And then, I just accepted the original entries, as is. I.e., the &quot;rebase&quot; shouldn&#39;t have changed a thing. It ended up with the same results describe previously.

Update #3:
---

Alternatively, if I omit the strategy and replace the last command with:

    git rebase -i bd6a09a484b8230d0810e6689cf08a24f26f287a

I no longer get the &quot;nothing to commit&quot; rebase problems, but I&#39;m still left with the other conflicts.

Update with toy repository that recreates problem:
---

test_squash.sh (this is the file you actually run):

    #========================================================
    # Initialize directories
    #========================================================
    rm -rf test_squash/ test_squash_clone/
    mkdir -p test_squash
    mkdir -p test_squash_clone
    #========================================================
    
    #========================================================
    # Create repository with history
    #========================================================
    cd test_squash/
    git init
    echo &quot;README&quot;&gt;README
    git add README
    git commit -m&quot;Initial commit: can&#39;t easily access for rebasing&quot;
    echo &quot;Line 1&quot;&gt;test_file.txt
    git add test_file.txt
    git commit -m&quot;Created single line file&quot;
    echo &quot;Line 2&quot;&gt;&gt;test_file.txt 
    git add test_file.txt 
    git commit -m&quot;Meant for it to be two lines&quot;
    git checkout -b dev
    echo Meaningful code&gt;new_file.txt
    git add new_file.txt 
    git commit -m&quot;Meaningful commit&quot;
    git checkout master
    echo Conflicting meaningful code&gt;new_file.txt
    git add new_file.txt 
    git commit -m&quot;Conflicting meaningful commit&quot;
    # This will conflict
    git merge dev
    # Fixes conflict
    echo Merged meaningful code&gt;new_file.txt
    git add new_file.txt
    git commit -m&quot;Merged dev with master&quot;
    cd ..
    
    #========================================================
    # Save off a clone of the repository prior to squashing
    #========================================================
    git clone test_squash test_squash_clone
    #========================================================
    
    #========================================================
    # Do the squash
    #========================================================
    cd test_squash
    GIT_EDITOR=../test_squash_helper.sh git rebase -i HEAD@{7}
    #========================================================
    
    #========================================================
    # Show the results
    #========================================================
    git log
    git gc
    git reflog
    #========================================================

test_squash_helper.sh (used by test_sqash.sh):

    # If the file has the phrase &quot;pick &quot; in it, assume it&#39;s the log file
    if grep -q &quot;pick &quot; $1
    then
      sed -e &quot;s/pick $.*$ $Meant for it to be two lines$/squash \1 \2/g&quot; &lt; $1 &gt; $1.tmp
      mv $1.tmp $1
    # Else, assume it&#39;s the commit message file
    else
    # Use our pre-canned message
      echo &quot;Created two line file&quot; &gt; $1
    fi


P.S.: Yes, I know some of you cringe when you see me using emacs as a fall-back editor.

P.P.S.: We do know we&#39;ll have to blow away all of our clones of the existing repository after the rebase. (Along the lines of &quot;thou shalt not rebase a repository after it&#39;s been published&quot;.)

P.P.P.S: Can anyone tell me how to add a bounty to this? I&#39;m not seeing the option anywhere on this screen whether I&#39;m in edit mode or view mode.




Why does git-rebase give me merge conflicts when all I&#39;m doing is squashing commits?

I am trying to make simple regex that will check if a line is blank or not.

Case;

    &quot;    some&quot;   // not blank
    &quot;   &quot; //blank
    &quot;&quot; // blank

How to check if a line is blank using regex

This batch file releases a build from TEST to LIVE. I want to add a check constraint in this file that ensures there is an accomanying release document in a specific folder.

    &quot;C:\Program Files\Windows Resource Kits\Tools\robocopy.exe&quot; &quot;\\testserver\testapp$&quot;        
    &quot;\\liveserver\liveapp$&quot; *.* /E /XA:H /PURGE /XO /XD &quot;.svn&quot; /NDL /NC /NS /NP
    del &quot;\\liveserver\liveapp$\web.config&quot;
    ren &quot;\\liveserver\liveapp$\web.live.config&quot; web.config

So I have a couple of questions about how to achieve this...

1. There is a `version.txt` file in the `\\testserver\testapp$` folder, and the only contents of this file is the build number (for example, 45 - for build 45)
How do I read the contents of the `version.txt` file into a variable in the batch file?

2. How do I check if a file ,`\\fileserver\myapp\releasedocs\ {build}.doc`, exists using the variable from part 1 in place of {build}?


How to read file contents into a variable in a batch file?

This batch file releases a build from TEST to LIVE. I want to add a check constraint in this file that ensures there is an accomanying release document in a specific folder.
<pre><code class="hljs language-swift">"C:\Program Files\Windows Resource Kits\Tools\robocopy.exe" "\\testserver\testapp$" 
"\\liveserver\liveapp$" *.* /E /XA:H /PURGE /XO /XD ".svn" /NDL /NC /NS /NP
del "\\liveserver\liveapp$\web.config"
ren "\\liveserver\liveapp$\web.live.config" web.config
</code></pre>
So I have a couple of questions about how to achieve this...
<ol>
<li>
There is a <code>version.txt</code> file in the <code>\\testserver\testapp$</code> folder, and the only contents of this file is the build number (for example, 45 - for build 45)
How do I read the contents of the <code>version.txt</code> file into a variable in the batch file?
</li>
<li>
How do I check if a file ,<code>\\fileserver\myapp\releasedocs\ {build}.doc</code>, exists using the variable from part 1 in place of {build}?
</li>
</ol>

I have this little batch script:

    SET @var = &quot;GREG&quot;
    ECHO %@var%
    PAUSE

When I run it, it prints:

    H:\Dynamics&gt;SET @var = &quot;GREG&quot;
    
    H:\Dynamics&gt;ECHO
    ECHO is on.
    
    H:\Dynamics&gt;PAUSE
    Press any key to continue . . .

Why won&#39;t it print the contents of @var?  How do I know if @var is even being set?

Batch - Echo or Variable Not Working

I&#39;m searching (without success) for a script, which would work as a batch file and allow me to prepend a UTF-8 text file with a BOM if it doesn&#39;t have one.

Neither the language it is written in (perl, python, c, bash) nor the OS it works on, matters to me. I have access to a wide range of computers.

I&#39;ve found a lot of scripts to do the reverse (strip the BOM), which sounds to me as kind of silly, as many Windows program will have trouble reading UTF-8 text files if they don&#39;t have a BOM.

Did I miss the obvious?

Thanks!

Adding BOM to UTF-8 files

I have the following batch script from Wikipedia:

    @echo off
        for /R &quot;C:\Users\Admin\Ordner&quot; %%f in (*.flv) do (
        echo %%f
    )
    pause



In the for-loop all files with the extension flv get echoed,
but I want the make some actions with the file(s)
where I need one time the file without the extension and one time with the extension.
How could I get these two?

I searched for solutions but I don&#39;t find one.
I&#39;m a real newbie in batch...

Batch: Remove file extension

When I have `setlocal ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION` set in a cmd script is there any way I can escape a ! that I want to use as a parameter to a command? 

    @echo off
    setlocal ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
    echo I want to go out with a bang!
    echo I still want to go out with a bang^!


How can I escape an exclamation mark ! in cmd scripts?

I want to write a batch file that performs the following operations: 
 
 * Check if a service is running  
  * If is it running, quit the batch  
  * If it is not running, start the service  

The code samples I googled so far turned out not to be working, so I decided not to post them. 

Starting a service is done by:

    net start &quot;SERVICENAME&quot;

1. How can I check if a service is running, and how to make an if statement in a batchfile?  
2. I&#39;m a bit confused. What is the argument I have to pass onto the net start? The service name or its display name?

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	user23048345	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Batch File	Joey	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Batch File	xnagyg	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Batch File	David	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Batch File	DPS	View Answer on Stackoverflow

How to read file contents into a variable in a batch file?

Batch File Problem Overview

Batch File Solutions

Solution 1 - Batch File

Solution 2 - Batch File

Solution 3 - Batch File

Solution 4 - Batch File

How to check if a line is blank using regex

Why does git-rebase give me merge conflicts when all I'm doing is squashing commits?

Attributions