China DOS Union

@echo off
set a=1
echo %a%
pause
The above statements.... when I run the batch file, it normally displays 1

Then... I changed the above batch file to this:
@echo off
set aDate = %date:~0,-4%
for /f "tokens=1" %%a in ('type "d:\date.txt"^|find "%aDate%"') do set LastDate = "%%a"
echo %LastDate%
pause
It says ECHO is off

Then I changed it back to
@echo off
set a=1
echo %a%
pause
and it still says ECHO is off

.I'm completely confused.... where exactly is the problem?

[ Last edited by simplenoughappy on 2008-3-4 at 05:00 PM ]

There was no need to add so many spaces

set aDate = %date:~0,-4%
This line has spaces in it, try deleting the spaces
set aDate=%date:~0,-4%

Also, "tokens=1" can be removed; by default it takes the value from the first column

I just went and changed it.. it's probably because of the spaces...
Thanks for the reminder from the posters above..... I've only just started learning batch files, so there are a lot of things I don't understand
It really feels like it's very strict about spaces...
I used to be in the habit of adding spaces on both sides of the = sign...

Because the spaces affected the value of the variable, find couldn't find it in the end, so the output of the for statement was empty
When you have echo display an empty variable, that kind of thing happens