MS DOS 'for' command to access file contents -- spaces

If a.txt contains

a b c
abc

The command for /f %开发者_JAVA技巧x in (a.txt) do echo %x is printing

a
abc

What am I doing wrong?

---

for /f "tokens=*" %x in (a.txt) do @echo %x

The @echo will prevent the echo line from being printed

---

for /f "delims=|" %i in (a.txt) do @echo %i

Inside "delims=|" you can use any character for the delimiter that is not part of the file

---

@echo off
setlocal
for /F "usebackq tokens=1-3 delims= " %%a IN ("a.txt") DO (
    if not "%%a"=="" echo.%%a
    if not "%%b"=="" echo.%%b
    if not "%%c"=="" echo.%%c
)

Tokens - the set of chars delimited by one of the delim char. You can specify many delim chars, i.e. delims= .,