Transform string to the same number of hyphens

[John Gray]

For "underlining" purposes I want to transform a single word, replacing each letter by an equals sign or perhaps a hyphen.

I can do this via a looping mechanism, letter by letter, but is there a more elegant method requiring one or just a few lines?

set original=SingleWord
transforms to
set underline=----------

[JJ]

I don't think so. If you're aiming for easy programming, make the loop as a
function so that you can call it in just a single line. e.g.

@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

set str=abc
echo Before=%str%
call :replace
echo After =%str%

set str=def
echo Before=%str%
call :replace
echo After =%str%

goto :eof

:replace
for /l %%A in (0,1,99) do (
set c=!str:~%%A,1!
if "!c!" == "" goto next
call :replacechr !c!
)
:next
goto :eof
:replacechr
set str=!str:%1=-!

[John Gray]

Thanks, some neat tricks there.
I have refined my attempt to make it more general, and present two possible methods:

@echo off
setlocal
:: from a header string which contains no double quotes or poison characters
:: construct an underlines string of the same length
:: the header string
set hdr=My Page Header
:: index into header string, first character initially
set idx=0
:: the underlines string, null initially
set uls=
:: the underlining character: one of - = * # (say)
set ulchr=*
::--------------------
:loop
rem extract the current character from the header string
call set chr=%%hdr:~%idx%,1%%
if "%chr%" neq "" (
set "uls=%uls%%ulchr%"
set /a idx+=1
goto loop
)
::--------------------
echo %hdr%
echo %uls%
PAUSE
::===========================================================
:: another method, by truncating a copy of the header string
set tmp=%hdr%
set uls=
set ulchr==
:--------------------
:loop1
rem truncate right until there is no character remaining
call set tmp=%%tmp:~0,-1%%
set "uls=%uls%%ulchr%"
if defined tmp goto loop1
::--------------------
echo %hdr%
echo %uls%
PAUSE
endlocal

[ada...@poczta.onet.pl]

W dniu środa, 23 sierpnia 2017 14:32:47 UTC+2 użytkownik John Gray napisał:
> For "underlining" purposes I want to transform a single word, replacing each letter by an equals sign or perhaps a hyphen.
>

@echo off

set INPUT=Text to underline


set XX=%INPUT%
:loop
SET XX=%XX:~1%
SET UND=%UND%-

IF NOT "%XX%"=="" GOTO loop

echo %INPUT%
echo %UND%

[pro...@berkeley.edu]

Here's another variation (screen capture Win7 Pro):

>set filename=c:\cmd\demo\hyphenator.cmd

>listit %filename%
==========begin "c:\Cmd\demo\hyphenator.cmd" ==========
1. @echo off & setlocal enableextensions enabledelayedexpansion
2. >%temp%\$eraseme$.$$$ echo/%*
3. for %%a in (%temp%\$eraseme$.$$$) do (
4. set /a length=%%~za-2
5. del %%a
6. )
7. set $O=
8. for /l %%i in (1,1,%length%) do set $O=!$O!-
9. endlocal&set %~n0=%$O%&echo/%*&echo/%$O%
==========end "c:\Cmd\demo\hyphenator.cmd" ==========

>%filename% supercalifragilisticexpialwhatever
supercalifragilisticexpialwhatever
----------------------------------

>for %a in (%filename%) do @set %~na
hyphenator=----------------------------------

end screen capture Win7 Pro

--
Phil Robyn

[Herbert Kleebauer]

On 23.08.2017 14:32, John Gray wrote:

> I can do this via a looping mechanism, letter by letter, but is there
> a more elegant method requiring one or just a few lines?
>
> set original=SingleWord
> transforms to
> set underline=----------

Slow but short:

@echo off
set original=Single Word
echo %original%

for /l %%i in (1,1,32) do call set original=%%original:~1%%-

echo %original%

[John Gray]

Phil: I've added that method to my file of solutions, even though I prefer to avoid temporary files.

Herbert: your method can suffer from "the trailing blank problem" (certainly using NOTEPAD) unless in each SET statement you enclose everything after SET in double-quotes (or otherwise). Presumably this is editor-dependent?
Interesting that the FOR loop terminates early!

Perhaps:

(set original=Single Word)

[Herbert Kleebauer]

On 25.08.2017 12:35, John Gray wrote:

> Herbert: your method can suffer from "the trailing blank problem"
> (certainly using NOTEPAD) unless in each SET statement you enclose
> everything after SET in double-quotes (or otherwise).

I don't think this is a "problem". If you write a trailing space,
then the batch can't just ignore it. But you always can add a &
to ignore unwanted trailing spaces:

for /l %%i in (1,1,32) do call set original=%%original:~1%%-&

> Interesting that the FOR loop terminates early!

The "for" doesn't terminate early, but replacing a "-" by an
other "-" doesn't change anything. But there is a problem if you
don't know the upper limit for the length of the word. In this
case you have to check and loop if necessary:

@echo off
set original=Single Word
echo %original%

:loop
for /l %%i in (1,1,32) do call set original=%%original:~1%%-&
set a=%original:-=%&if defined a goto :loop

echo %original%


But then you also can set the loop count in the for loop to 1
(which means removing the for loop):

@echo off
set original=Single Word
echo %original%

:loop
set original=%original:~1%-&set a=%original:-=%&if defined a goto :loop

echo %original%

[mokomoji]

2017년 8월 24일 목요일 오후 8시 10분 31초 UTC+9, ada...@poczta.onet.pl 님의 말:

good..

@echo off
setlocal
set "z_original=original=Single Word sdfasdf23423423423424242dsfasdas3424234"
set "z_o2=%z_original%"
:l
set "z_o2=%z_o2:~1%"
set "z_u2=%z_u2%-"
if "%z_o2%" neq "" goto :l

echo %z_original%
echo %z_u2%
endlocal

pause