Batch Script: Column of output from program to variable?
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I've written bash scripts before, but I'm a little confused about how to do this with batch:

I have a program that outputs:

    aaa boo
    bbb boo
    ccc boo
    ddd boo

I'd like to iterate over the first column, and perform an action on each string.
How can I do this is batch?

    var=OUTPUT
    for col1 in var
        echo col1

I can probably figure out the for loop part, but I don't know how to get the column of output stored as a string.

Thanks in advance for any help!