[tex-live] [NTG-pdftex] Runtime limitations on open files?

David Kastrup dak at gnu.org
Sat Aug 18 14:45:48 CEST 2007


Philip TAYLOR <Philip-and-LeKhanh at Royal-Tunbridge-Wells.Org> writes:

> David Kastrup wrote:
>
>> Have you actually programmed any serious batch scripts under Windows?
>
> Yes, many : after leaving VMS (a forced migration, not my choice)
> I have worked only with Windows.  Probably the key to success
> is a familiarity with the HELP system :
>
>> 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
>>     %~$PATH:I   - searches the directories listed in the PATH
>>                    environment variable and expands %I to the
>>                    fully qualified name of the first one found.
>>                    If the environment variable name is not
>>                    defined or the file is not found by the
>>                    search, then this modifier expands to the
>>                    empty string
>>
>> The modifiers can be combined to get compound results:
>>
>>     %~dpI       - expands %I to a drive letter and path only
>>     %~nxI       - expands %I to a file name and extension only
>>     %~fsI       - expands %I to a full path name with short names only
>>     %~dp$PATH:I - searches the directories listed in the PATH
>>                    environment variable for %I and expands to the
>>                    drive letter and path of the first one found.
>>     %~ftzaI     - expands %I to a DIR like output line
>>
>> In the above examples %I and PATH can be replaced by other valid
>> values.  The %~ syntax is terminated by a valid FOR variable name.
>> Picking upper case variable names like %I makes it more readable and
>> avoids confusion with the modifiers, which are not case sensitive.

It must be mentioned that one actually needs single-iteration
for-loops for almost any useful variable manipulation.  Quite
intuitive.

> Also very useful is Log Parser 2.2 (which does far far more than
> parsing log files !) and, of course, Perl.

Perl is not exactly creditable to Windows now, is it?

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum


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