A little over a year ago I wrote an article about automatic scripted installation of the SOA and BPM QuickStarts. One thing I wanted to improve is to be able to dynamically expand properties in the response file. I already found out how to do that under Linux but most QuickStart installations are done under Windows. So how to 'how to replace properties in textfile in Windows'?

I found this StackOverflow question, and favored the PowerShell option, so I modified that answer to be able to expand the ORACLE_HOME property in the response file.

I modified the response file that I got from the manual installation wizard of the BPM QuickStart as follows:

[ENGINE]

#DO NOT CHANGE THIS.
Response File Version=1.0.0.0.0

[GENERIC]

#Set this to true if you wish to skip software updates
DECLINE_AUTO_UPDATES=true

#My Oracle Support User Name
MOS_USERNAME=

#My Oracle Support Password
MOS_PASSWORD=<SECURE VALUE>

#If the Software updates are already downloaded and available on your local system, then specify the path to the directory where these patches are available and set SPECIFY_DOWNLOAD_LOCATION to true
AUTO_UPDATES_LOCATION=

#Proxy Server Name to connect to My Oracle Support
SOFTWARE_UPDATES_PROXY_SERVER=

#Proxy Server Port
SOFTWARE_UPDATES_PROXY_PORT=

#Proxy Server Username
SOFTWARE_UPDATES_PROXY_USER=

#Proxy Server Password
SOFTWARE_UPDATES_PROXY_PASSWORD=<SECURE VALUE>

#The oracle home location. This can be an existing Oracle Home or a new Oracle Home
ORACLE_HOME=${ORACLE_HOME}

I saved this as bpmqs1221_silentInstall.rsp.tpl. Then I created a simple command file called expandProperties.bat with the following content:

set ORACLE_HOME=c:\oracle\jdeveloper\12212_bpmqs
set QS_RSP=bpmqs1221_silentInstall.rsp
set QS_RSP_TPL=%QS_RSP%.tpl
powershell -Command "(Get-Content %QS_RSP_TPL%) -replace '\$\{ORACLE_HOME\}', '%ORACLE_HOME%' | Out-File -encoding ASCII %QS_RSP%"

This does the following:

1. Set the ORACLE_HOME environment variable. This is what I also do in the QuickStart install script. The content of this variable should replace the '${ORACLE_HOME}' property in the response file template.
2. Set QS_RSP to the Response File name
3. Set QS_RSP_TPL to the Response File Template name
4.  Call Powershell with a command line command using the '-Command' argument
1. Read the template file denoted with %QS_RSP_TPL%' using the Get-Content argument.
2. Replace the occurrences of the string  '${ORACLE_HOME}' with the value of the corresponsing environment variable '%ORACLE_HOME%'. But since the input is considered as a regular expression. Thus the special characters $, { and } need to be prefixed with a backslash.
3. 'Pipe' the output to the output file denoted with %QS_RSP%. It's important to add -encoding ASCII for the encoding. Otherwise its apparently encoded in UTF in a way the Oracle Installer does not comprehend.

Run this as:

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.14393]
(c) 2016 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

c:\Data\Zarchief\Stage\FMW\bpm12cR2QS>expandProperties.bat

c:\Data\Zarchief\Stage\FMW\bpm12cR2QS>set ORACLE_HOME=c:\oracle\jdeveloper\12212_bpmqs

c:\Data\Zarchief\Stage\FMW\bpm12cR2QS>set QS_RSP=bpmqs1221_silentInstall.rsp

c:\Data\Zarchief\Stage\FMW\bpm12cR2QS>set QS_RSP_TPL=bpmqs1221_silentInstall.rsp.tpl

c:\Data\Zarchief\Stage\FMW\bpm12cR2QS>rem powershell -Command "(gc bpmqs1221_silentInstall.rsp.tpl) -replace '\$\{ORACLE_HOME\}', 'c:\oracle\jdeveloper\12212_bpmqs' | Out-File -encoding ASCII bpmqs1221_silentInstall.rsp"

c:\Data\Zarchief\Stage\FMW\bpm12cR2QS>powershell -Command "(Get-Content bpmqs1221_silentInstall.rsp.tpl) -replace '\$\{ORACLE_HOME\}', 'c:\oracle\jdeveloper\12212_bpmqs' | Out-File bpmqs1221_silentInstall.rsp"

c:\Data\Zarchief\Stage\FMW\bpm12cR2QS>

This creates a new file named bpmqs1221_silentInstall.rsp, where the content of the last line is changed to:

...

#The oracle home location. This can be an existing Oracle Home or a new Oracle Home
ORACLE_HOME=c:\oracle\jdeveloper\12212_bpmqs

Just what I need...