Batch - Converting variable to uppercase

Joshua Patterson picture Joshua Patterson · Jan 11, 2016 · Viewed 38.8k times · Source

How would I go about changing the destl variable to uppercase before it is used. I assume some sort of character swap, however I couldn't get it working. Code is as follows -

@echo off
echo.

set /P "destf=Enter First Name: "

set /P "destl=Enter Last Name: "

set "findest=Z:\ProjectIT\copy\%destl%, %destf%"

robocopy Z:\ProjectIT\copy\test "%findest%" /e /NFL /NDL /NJH /NJS

robocopy Z:\ProjectIT\copy\Construction "%findest%"\1-BLANK-%destl% /e /NFL /NDL /NJH /NJS"

echo Construction folder has been created for "%destl%"
echo.

pause

I have tried calling something like the following, but could not get it to work -

:Uppercase
set %~1=!%1:a=A!
set %~1=!%1:b=B!
set %~1=!%1:c=C!
set %~1=!%1:d=D!
set %~1=!%1:e=E!
set %~1=!%1:f=F!
set %~1=!%1:g=G!
set %~1=!%1:h=H!
set %~1=!%1:i=I!
set %~1=!%1:j=J!
set %~1=!%1:k=K!
set %~1=!%1:l=L!
set %~1=!%1:m=M!
set %~1=!%1:n=N!
set %~1=!%1:o=O!
set %~1=!%1:p=P!
set %~1=!%1:q=Q!
set %~1=!%1:r=R!
set %~1=!%1:s=S!
set %~1=!%1:t=T!
set %~1=!%1:u=U!
set %~1=!%1:v=V!
set %~1=!%1:w=W!
set %~1=!%1:x=X!
set %~1=!%1:y=Y!
set %~1=!%1:z=Z!

Sorry about the rough code - I'm quite new to this.

Regards,

Joshua

Answer

rojo picture rojo · Jan 11, 2016

The shortest way (without requiring 3rd party downloads) would be to use PowerShell.

set "str=The quick brown fox"
for /f "usebackq delims=" %%I in (`powershell "\"%str%\".toUpper()"`) do set "upper=%%~I"

A faster way but still using less code than any pure batch solution would be to employ WSH.

@if (@CodeSection == @Batch) @then
@echo off & setlocal

set "str=The quick brown fox"
for /f "delims=" %%I in ('cscript /nologo /e:JScript "%~f0" "%str%"') do set "upper=%%~I"
set upper
goto :EOF

@end // end Batch / begin JScript hybrid
WSH.Echo(WSH.Arguments(0).toUpperCase());

And of course, you can easily make either a function so you can call it multiple times as needed.

@if (@CodeSection == @Batch) @then
@echo off & setlocal

call :toUpper upper1 "The quick brown fox"
call :toUpper upper2 "jumps over the lazy dog."
set upper
goto :EOF

:toUpper <return_var> <str>
for /f "delims=" %%I in ('cscript /nologo /e:JScript "%~f0" "%~2"') do set "%~1=%%~I"
goto :EOF

@end // end Batch / begin JScript hybrid
WSH.Echo(WSH.Arguments(0).toUpperCase());

Or if you want to be really hacksy about it, you could abuse the tree command's error message like this:

@echo off & setlocal

set upper=
set "str=Make me all uppercase!"
for /f "skip=2 delims=" %%I in ('tree "\%str%"') do if not defined upper set "upper=%%~I"
set "upper=%upper:~3%"
echo %upper%