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windowsbatch-filecmdpath

Remove trailing backslash from a path with batch

I have such a filename saved in a variable:

C:\Directory\Directory2\

And now I want to have this:

C:\Directory\Directory2

How to cut the last \ from the filename or the last character?

Solution

  • Well, just don't! Removing the trailing backslash may change the target the path points to; think of C:\ – which points to the root directory of the drive, while C: points to the current directory of it.

    The most reliable way of dealing with potential trailing backslashes is probably to append ., because C:\Directory\Directory2\ is equivalent to C:\Directory\Directory2\., C:\Directory\Directory2 and C:\Directory\Directory2., because all these paths point to exactly the same location.

    If the suffix disturbs for cosmetic reasons, resolve it by a for loop after having appended .:

    set "dirPath=C:\Directory\Directory2\"
for %%I in ("%dirPath%.") do echo "%%~fI"

    The modifier ~f defines to resolve the path and also converts relative ones to full/absolute ones.

    If the provided path may even end with \. or is something like C:., appending another . would change its target; this however can be solved by another for loop before appending .:

    set "dirPath=C:\Directory\Directory2\."
for %%J in ("%dirPath%") do for %%I in ("%%~fJ.") do echo "%%~fI"

    Note that for resolves wildcards like ? and *.