What is the best way to do a substring in a batch file?

I want to get the name of the currently running batch file without the file extension.

Thanks to this link, I have the file name with the extension... but what is the best way to do a substring in a batch file?

Or is there another way to get the file name w/o the extension?

It is safe to assume 3 letter extensions in this scenario.

Well, for just getting the filename of your batch the easiest way would be to just use %~n0.

@echo %~n0

will output the name (without the extension) of the currently running batch file (unless executed in a subroutine called by call). The complete list of such “special” substitutions for path names can be found with help for, at the very end of the help:

> In addition, substitution of FOR > variable references has been enhanced. > You can now use the following optional > syntax: > > %~I - expands %I removing any surrounding quotes (") > %~fI - expands %I to a fully qualified path name > %~dI - expands %I to a drive letter only > %~pI - expands %I to a path only > %~nI - expands %I to a file name only > %~xI - expands %I to a file extension only > %~sI - expanded path contains short names only > %~aI - expands %I to file attributes of file > %~tI - expands %I to date/time of file > %zI - expands %I to size of file > %$PATH:I - searches the directories listed in the PATH > environment variable and expands %I to the > fully qualified name of the first one found. > If the environment variable name is not > defined or the file is not found by the > search, then this modifier expands to the > empty string > > The modifiers can be combined to get > compound results: > > %~dpI - expands %I to a drive letter and path only > %~nxI - expands %I to a file name and extension only > %~fsI - expands %I to a full path name with short names only

To precisely answer your question, however: Substrings are done using the :~start,length notation:

%var:~10,5%

will extract 5 characters from position 10 in the environment variable %var%.

NOTE: The index of the strings is zero based, so the first character is at position 0, the second at 1, etc.

To get substrings of argument variables such as %0, %1, etc. you have to assign them to a normal environment variable using set first:

:: Does not work:
@echo %1:~10,5

:: Assign argument to local variable first:
set var=%1
@echo %var:~10,5%

The syntax is even more powerful:

• %var:~-7% extracts the last 7 characters from %var%
• %var:~0,-4% would extract all characters except the last four which would also rid you of the file extension (assuming three characters after the period [.]).

See help set for details on that syntax.

Nicely explained above!

For all those who may suffer like me to get this working in a localized Windows (mine is XP in Slovak), you may try to replace the % with a !

So:

SET TEXT=Hello World
SET SUBSTRING=!TEXT:~3,5!
ECHO !SUBSTRING!

As an additional info to Joey's answer, which isn't described in the help of set /? nor for /?.

%~0 expands to the name of the own batch, exactly as it was typed.
So if you start your batch it will be expanded as

%~0   - mYbAtCh
%~n0  - mybatch
%~nx0 - mybatch.bat

But there is one exception, expanding in a subroutine could fail

echo main- %~0
call :myFunction
exit /b

:myFunction
echo func - %~0
echo func - %~n0
exit /b

This results to

main - myBatch
Func - :myFunction
func - mybatch

In a function %~0 expands always to the name of the function, not of the batch file.
But if you use at least one modifier it will show the filename again!