> Gasp! Al Dunbar finally comes up with something new! Will wonders never
> cease?

> > Thanks

> You're welcome. Enjoy.

> /Al

> > On Fri, 15 Feb 2002 22:05:18 -0700, "Al Dunbar"
> > <LuigiDun...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> > >"john miller" <j...@millertransportation.com> wrote in message
> > >news:43ea01c1b558$aa1d7010$19ef2ecf@tkmsftngxa01...
> > >> I have a device attached to COM1 which sends/recieves
> > >> data. I have been able to send data using this:

> > >> echo "command" > COM1

> > >> How can I recieve the answer or result that the device is
> > >> returning.  I would like for the for the data which is
> > >> being transmitted from the device to go to a file.

> > >In testing my previous reply to the above, I ran across a way to simulate
> an
> > >ECHO without a terminating CRLF sequence using batch-only facilities. No
> > >doubt others are aware of this, however, I have not seen it since I have
> > >been following this newsgroup, so will post it here for the benefit of
> any
> > >others who, like myself, did not know.

> > >The command "echo.hello world" emits the string "hello world" followed by
> a
> > >CRLF sequence. There are at least a couple of situations where this fact
> is
> > >a nuisance:

> > >    - displaying a minimalist progress bar.
> > >    - sending arbitrary character strings to a serial device.
> > >    - writing strings from separate commands that need to appear in the
> same
> > >line in an output file.

> > >The command that does this is:

> > >    <nul (set/p anyvariable=string to emit)

> > >The "<nul" pipes a nul response to the set/p command, which will cause
> the
> > >variable used to remain unchanged. As usual with set/p, the string to the
> > >right of the equal sign is displayed as a prompt with no CRLF.

> > >Here is an example where this is used for a rudimentary progress bar:

> > >    @echo off
> > >    for /l %%A in (1,1,20) do (
> > >        <nul (set/p z=%%A)
> > >        >nul ping 127.0.0.1 -n 2
> > >    )

> > >And here is an example where info is written to a single line in a file
> from
> > >multiple uses of the set/p command:

> > >    <nul (set/p z=hello) >out.txt
> > >    <nul (set/p z= world!) >>out.txt
> > >    dir out.txt

> > >The dir command should indicate the file size as 12 bytes: "hello
> world!".

> > >The strings output need not be literal, and can originate from any source
> > >capable of creating a variable, simply by including a variable reference
> in
> > >the prompt string:

> > >    <nul (set/p z=sec min hours: %time:~6,2% %time:~3,2% %time:~0,2%)

> > >/Al

> > Clay Calvert
> > Replace "W" with "L" in email.