How to extract extension of input file parameter using Windows batch script

As an IT administrator, one of the essential tasks is to manage and maintain software and hardware resources. This includes the ability to quickly and efficiently process input files to extract data from them. One of the most common ways to do this is by using Windows batch scripts. A batch script is a file that contains a series of commands that are executed sequentially.

This article will discuss how to extract the file extension of an input file parameter using a Windows batch script. The batch script will first check to see if the file exists and then extract the file extension from the input parameter. The script will then output the file extension of the input file.

The first step is to create a batch script file with the extension “.bat”. The batch script will need to include the following code:

@echo off

REM Check to see if the file exists

IF EXIST %1 (

REM Extract the file extension

FOR %%A IN (%1) DO SET EXT=%%~xA

REM Output the file extension

ECHO %EXT%

) ELSE (

REM Output an error message

ECHO “File does not exist”

)

The code above will check to see if the file exists and then extract the file extension from the input parameter. The “~x” modifier is used to extract the file extension from the file name. The extracted file extension is then stored in the “EXT” variable. The script then outputs the file extension of the input file.

The batch script can then be tested by running it with a valid file name as an argument. For example, the following command can be used to test the script:

test.bat C:\\Test\\sample.txt

The output of this command should be “.txt” which is the file extension of the input file.

This article has discussed how to extract the file extension of an input file parameter using a Windows batch script. The batch script will first check to see if the file exists and then extract the file extension from the input parameter. The script will then output the file extension of the input file. This is a useful technique for quickly and efficiently processing input files and extracting data from them.