Expanding environment variables for command prompt

Question

I would like to run a cmd.exe that would evaluate environment variables at call time instead of when it parses the command. If I set the BASE to 2 and echoing it, I should see the number 2, although running this script does not properly set the base.

Expected Behavior: C:\Users\schristo>cmd.exe /X /C "set BASE=2 && echo %BASE% && pause" 2 Press any key to continue . . .

Actual behavior: C:\Users\schristo>cmd.exe /X /C "set BASE=2 && echo %BASE% && pause" %BASE% Press any key to continue . . .

Answer 1

This should work for you:

cmd.exe /X /V:ON /C "set BASE=2&&echo !BASE!&&pause"

/V:ON enables Delayed Expansion of variables, which is what you need here. Order of the switches (/V:ON /C) matters.