Equal-Sign Characters as Arguments in Batch Files (35938)



The information in this article applies to:
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 3.1
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 3.2
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 3.21
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 3.3
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 3.3a
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 4.0
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 4.01
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 5.0
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 5.0a
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 6.0
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 6.2
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 6.21
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 6.22

This article was previously published under Q35938
Using batch files in MS-DOS, it is not possible to include an equal sign as an argument to a batch file. The batch file parser considers this to be a delimiter, such as a space or tab character. Thus, using the following one-line batch file (named TEST.BAT):

echo %1 %2

If the following is entered:

TEST one=two

it would produce the following output

one two

which shows that the batch file parser considers "one" the first argument, and "two" the second argument, with the equal sign being a delimiter. This makes it impossible to enter equal signs in batch files as command-line options.

Modification Type: Major Last Reviewed: 5/12/2003
Keywords: KB35938