Batch file include external file for variables

Note: I'm assuming Windows batch files as most people seem to be unaware that there are significant differences and just blindly call everything with grey text on black background DOS. Nevertheless, the first variant should work in DOS as well.

Executable configuration

The easiest way to do this is to just put the variables in a batch file themselves, each with its own set statement:

set var1=value1
set var2=value2
...

and in your main batch:

call config.cmd

Of course, that also enables variables to be created conditionally or depending on aspects of the system, so it's pretty versatile. However, arbitrary code can run there and if there is a syntax error, then your main batch will exit too. In the UNIX world this seems to be fairly common, especially for shells. And if you think about it, autoexec.bat is nothing else.

Key/value pairs

Another way would be some kind of var=value pairs in the configuration file:

var1=value1
var2=value2
...

You can then use the following snippet to load them:

for /f "delims=" %%x in (config.txt) do (set "%%x")

This utilizes a similar trick as before, namely just using set on each line. The quotes are there to escape things like <, >, &, |. However, they will themselves break when quotes are used in the input. Also you always need to be careful when further processing data in variables stored with such characters.

Generally, automatically escaping arbitrary input to cause no headaches or problems in batch files seems pretty impossible to me. At least I didn't find a way to do so yet. Of course, with the first solution you're pushing that responsibility to the one writing the config file.

If the external configuration file is also valid batch file, you can just use:

call externalconfig.bat

inside your script. Try creating following a.bat:

@echo off
call b.bat
echo %MYVAR%

and b.bat:

set MYVAR=test

Running a.bat should generate output:

test

Batch uses the less than and greater than brackets as input and output pipes.

>file.ext

Using only one output bracket like above will overwrite all the information in that file.

>>file.ext

Using the double right bracket will add the next line to the file.

(
echo
echo
)<file.ext

This will execute the parameters based on the lines of the file. In this case, we are using two lines that will be typed using "echo". The left bracket touching the right parenthesis bracket means that the information from that file will be piped into those lines.

I have compiled an example-only read/write file. Below is the file broken down into sections to explain what each part does.

@echo off
echo TEST R/W
set SRU=0

SRU can be anything in this example. We're actually setting it to prevent a crash if you press Enter too fast.

set /p SRU=Skip Save? (y): 
if %SRU%==y goto read
set input=1
set input2=2
set /p input=INPUT: 
set /p input2=INPUT2: 

Now, we need to write the variables to a file.

(echo %input%)> settings.cdb
(echo %input2%)>> settings.cdb
pause

I use .cdb as a short form for "Command Database". You can use any extension. The next section is to test the code from scratch. We don't want to use the set variables that were run at the beginning of the file, we actually want them to load FROM the settings.cdb we just wrote.

:read
(
set /p input=
set /p input2=
)<settings.cdb

So, we just piped the first two lines of information that you wrote at the beginning of the file (which you have the option to skip setting the lines to check to make sure it's working) to set the variables of input and input2.

echo %input%
echo %input2%
pause
if %input%==1 goto newecho
pause
exit

:newecho
echo If you can see this, good job!
pause
exit

This displays the information that was set while settings.cdb was piped into the parenthesis. As an extra good-job motivator, pressing enter and setting the default values which we set earlier as "1" will return a good job message. Using the bracket pipes goes both ways, and is much easier than setting the "FOR" stuff. :)