Execute WMIC command in nested for-loop - batch-file

this is my first time creating a batch file and I'm relatively new to this coding language. I wish to create a batch file that scans through all DLL files within a folder to retrieve and write the version info into a new text file. The nested for-loop functioned well but I couldn't get the WMIC command to execute, can you help?
Upon double-clicking to run the batch file, this is what I will get:
Description = Invalid query
'WMIC DataFile Where "Name='mydirecotry\myfile.dll'" Get Version'
Node - myPCname
Here are the codes I wrote:
#echo off
SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
FOR %%I in (D:\mydirecotry\*.dll*) DO (
SET Location='WMIC DataFile Where "Name='%%I'" Get Version'
ECHO !Location!
For /F "Tokens=1* Delims=" %%A In (!Location!) Do ( <---Where i think it went wrong
For /F "Tokens=*" %%B In ("%%~A") Do Set "pver=%%B"
ECHO %%I - %pver% >> test.txt
)
)
pause
Thanks in advance.

As the majority of my earlier comment is already within a supplied answer, I have decided to provide the alternative method I used within that comment, as an answer.
For the task you've laid out in your question, you should be able to have a single line batch-file, with no set or for commands, just containing:
#"%__AppDir__%wbem\WMIC.exe" /Output:"test.txt" DataFile Where "Drive='D:' And Path='\\mydirecotry\\' And Extension='dll'" Get Name, Version

The DLL version information collection task can be done with following batch file:
#echo off
setlocal EnableExtensions EnableDelayedExpansion
(for %%I in ("D:\V4-x64\Exe\Bin\*.dll*") do (
set "FileName=%%I"
set "FileName=!FileName:\=\\!"
for /F "skip=1" %%J In ('%SystemRoot%\System32\wbem\wmic.exe DATAFILE where Name^="!FileName!" GET Version 2^>nul') do if defined FileName set "FileName=" & echo %%I - %%J
)) >test.txt
endlocal
Each backslash in full qualified file name must be escaped with one more backslash. That is a special WMIC requirement on using DATAFILE on which file name must be always specified with full path.
The command line specified within ' is executed by FOR with running in background %ComSpec% /c and the command line in ' appended as additional arguments. So executed is in background with Windows installed to C:\Windows the command line:
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c C:\Windows\System32\wbem\wmic.exe DATAFILE where Name="D:\\V4-x64\\Exe\\Bin\\FileName.dll" GET Version 2>nul
The equal sign must be escaped with ^ to be interpreted as literal character and not as argument separator as otherwise = would be replaced by a space character before running cmd.exe in background which would make the arguments invalid for wmic.exe.
The redirection operator > must be escaped also with ^ to be interpreted as literal character on parsing the FOR command line before executing FOR at all.
WMIC outputs the data Unicode encoded with UTF-16 Little Endian encoding with byte order mark (BOM). FOR has problems to parse the Unicode output correct as expecting an ASCII/ANSI/OEM character encoding, i.e. one byte per character without null bytes. The byte sequence with the hexadecimal values 0D 00 0A 00 being UTF-16 LE encoded the line ending carriage return + line-feed is interpreted as 0D 0D 0A by FOR (respectively cmd.exe). So there is an erroneous carriage return at end of the real line ending removed by FOR before processing further the remaining string.
For that reason the WMIC output is interpreted with skipping the first line containing just the string Version and so processed is first the second line with the version string by removing leading and trailing spaces.
The full qualified file name of the current DLL file and its version is output with command ECHO. Additionally the environment variable FileName is deleted to make sure that no further line output by WMIC including an empty line interpreted by FOR as a line with just a carriage return results in running once again command ECHO with loop variable J having assigned a carriage return.
The batch file does not work for DLL files with an exclamation mark in file name, but that should not matter here as I have never seen a DLL with ! in file name.
Another solution provided by Compo in a comment is much faster and works also for DLL file names with ! in file name.
#echo off
%SystemRoot%\System32\wbem\wmic.exe DATAFILE Where "Drive='D:' And Path='\\V4-x64\\Exe\\Bin\\' And Extension='dll'" GET Name,Version >"%TEMP%\%~n0.tmp"
%SystemRoot%\System32\more.com +1 "%TEMP%\%~n0.tmp" >test.txt
del "%TEMP%\%~n0.tmp"
WMIC searches itself for *.dll files in the directory D:\V4-x64\Exe\Bin and outputs full name of the DLL file and its version written into a temporary file being UTF-16 LE encoded with BOM. This temporary file is next processed with MORE with skipping the header line and the empty lines at bottom and the output is written into test.txt being a non-Unicode file. The temporary file is deleted finally.
For completeness:
#%SystemRoot%\System32\wbem\wmic.exe DATAFILE Where "Drive='D:' And Path='\\V4-x64\\Exe\\Bin\\' And Extension='dll'" GET Name,Version | %SystemRoot%\System32\more.com +1 >test.txt
This command line produces a non-Unicode encoded text file test.txt on which every line with a DLL file name and version is terminated with two carriage returns and one line-feed and with two empty lines at bottom with just one carriage return plus line-feed. So it is not recommended to use this single line variant.
For understanding the used commands and how they work, open a command prompt window, execute there the following commands, and read entirely all help pages displayed for each command very carefully.
call /? ... explains %~n0 ... file name of argument 0, i.e. the batch file name without file extension.
del /?
echo /?
endlocal /?
for /?
if /?
more /?
set /?
setlocal /?
wmic /?
wmic datafile /?
wmic datafile get /?
See also single line with multiple commands using Windows batch file for an explanation of the operator & and the Microsoft documentation about Using command redirection operators.

Related

How to copy a file with an incremented version number in file name depending on existing files?

I have the batch file below:
FOR /F "delims=|" %%I IN ('DIR "%C:\TeamCity\buildAgent\work\53bba593f5d69be\public\uploads\*.xlsx" /B /O:D') DO SET NewestFile=%%I
FOR /F "delims=" %%a IN ('wmic OS Get localdatetime ^| find "."') DO SET DateTime=%%a
set Yr=%DateTime:~0,4%
set Mon=%DateTime:~4,2%
set Day=%DateTime:~6,2%
setlocal enableDelayedExpansion
set "baseName=InventoryReport%Yr%-%Mon%-%Day% V1.%n%"
set "n=0"
FOR /f "delims=" %%F in (
'DIR /b /ad "%baseName%*"^|findstr /xri "\\192.168.0.141\Medisun\28 - Business Development\30 - Product Inventory\InventoryReport\"%baseName%[0-9]*""'
) do (
set "name=%%F"
set "name=!name:*%baseName%=!"
if !name! gtr !n! set "n=!name!"
)
set /a n+=1
md "%baseName%%n%"
copy "%C:\TeamCity\buildAgent\work\53bba593f5d69be\public\uploads\%NewestFile%" "\\192.168.0.141\Medisun\28 - Business Development\30 - Product Inventory\InventoryReport\%baseName%%n%.xlsx"
cmd /k
I cannot get it to find the greatest version number of previously copied file between V1. and file extension .xlsx in file name and increment it but one. The batch file finds the file V1.1, but overwrites it instead of copying newest file with V1.2 in target file name.
How can I get the previous file version first and increment that number?
The file copying task can be done with following batch file:
#echo off
setlocal EnableExtensions DisableDelayedExpansion
set "SourceFolder=C:\TeamCity\buildAgent\work\53bba593f5d69be\public\uploads"
set "TargetFolder=\\192.168.0.141\Medisun\28 - Business Development\30 - Product Inventory\InventoryReport"
for /F "eol=| delims=" %%I in ('dir "%SourceFolder%\*.xlsx" /A-D /B /O-D 2^>nul') do set "NewestFile=%%I" & goto CheckTarget
echo ERROR: Found no *.xlsx file in the folder:
echo "%SourceFolder%"
exit /B 1
:CheckTarget
if not exist "%TargetFolder%\" md "%TargetFolder%\" 2>nul
if exist "%TargetFolder%\" goto GetDateTime
echo ERROR: Failed to access or create the folder:
echo "%TargetFolder%"
exit /B 2
:GetDateTime
for /F "tokens=2 delims==." %%I in ('%SystemRoot%\System32\wbem\wmic.exe OS GET LocalDateTime /VALUE') do set "DateTime=%%I"
set "BaseName=InventoryReport%DateTime:~0,4%-%DateTime:~4,2%-%DateTime:~6,2% V1"
set "FileNumber=-1"
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
for /F "tokens=2 delims=." %%I in ('dir "!TargetFolder!\!BaseName!.*.xlsx" /A-D /B 2^>nul ^| %SystemRoot%\System32\findstr.exe /I /R /X /C:"!BaseName!\.[0123456789][0123456789]*\.xlsx"') do if %%I GTR !FileNumber! set "FileNumber=%%I"
endlocal & set "FileNumber=%FileNumber%"
set /A FileNumber+=1
copy /B /V "%SourceFolder%\%NewestFile%" "%TargetFolder%\%BaseName%.%FileNumber%.xlsx" >nul || exit /B 3
endlocal
The first FOR loop runs in background one more command process with %ComSpec% /c and the command line between the round brackets appended as additional arguments. So executed is with Windows installed to C:\Windows in background:
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c dir "C:\TeamCity\buildAgent\work\53bba593f5d69be\public\uploads\*.xlsx" /A-D /B /O-D 2>nul
The background command process executes internal command DIR which
searches in the specified directory
just for file names because of option /A-D (attribute not directory)
matching the wildcard pattern *.xlsx and
outputs them in bare format with just file name + extension because of option /B
ordered reverse by last modification date because of option /O-D which means the file name of newest file is output first and the file name of the oldest file is output last.
It is possible that either the source directory does not exist at all or the source directory does not contain any file matching these criteria. DIR would output in this case an error message to handle STDERR of background command process which would be redirected by the command process processing the batch file to own handle STDERR and so displayed most likely in console window. This error message is not wanted as there is a better one output below the FOR loop if there is not found any file for copying. For that reason the error message is redirected already by background command process to device NUL to suppress it.
Read the Microsoft documentation about Using command redirection operators for an explanation of 2>nul. The redirection operator > must be escaped with caret character ^ on FOR command line to be interpreted as literal character when Windows command interpreter processes this command line before executing command FOR which executes the embedded dir command line with using a separate command process started in background.
FOR captures everything written to handle STDOUT of background command process and processes this captured output line by line after the executed background cmd.exe terminated itself.
FOR with option /F ignores always empty lines which do not occur in this case. Every other line would be first split up into substrings using normal space and horizontal tab character as delimiters. The line would be ignored if the first space/tab delimited string starts with default end of line character ; (semicolon). Otherwise just the first space/tab delimited string would be assigned to loop variable I and the command respectively command block would be executed next.
A *.xlsx file name can contain one or more spaces. For that reason the FOR option delims= is used to define an empty list of string delimiters to disable line splitting completely. It is unusual, but nevertheless possible, that a file name starts with a semicolon. Therefore FOR option eol=| is also used to define the vertical bar as end of line character which no file name can contain as described by Microsoft in the documentation about Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces. So the result is that every file name output by DIR in background command process is assigned one after the other completely to the loop variable I.
The file name of the newest file is output first and so its name is assigned to environment variable NewestFile. Then the first FOR loop is exited with using command GOTO to jump to the first line below label CheckTarget as processing the other file names would be a waste of time and CPU power.
There is a meaningful error message output on no *.xlsx file found to copy and batch file processing is exited with exit code 1 to indicate an error condition to parent process starting this batch file.
Next, with having file name of newest file in source folder, an existence check of target folder is done with creating the target folder if not already existing. A meaningful error message is output if the target folder is still not existing because of other computer or storage device is not running or is not reachable at all or the creation of the target folder failed for whatever reason.
The next two command lines get the current date/time in a region independent format and define the base file name for target file using the current date. For a full description of these two lines see my answer on Time is set incorrectly after midnight.
Then the file number is defined with value -1 and delayed expansion is enabled as required for the number comparison done by the next FOR loop.
The third FOR loop is similar to first FOR loop. There is additionally the output of command DIR redirected to handle STDIN of FINDSTR to be filtered for verification if the file name of found file contains really just one or more digits between the dot after V1 and the dot of the file extension, i.e. this part of the file name is a valid number. It can be assumed that FINDSTR outputs the same lines as output by DIR on target folder not used for something different than the Excel files with the defined pattern for the file name. The two dots in name of each file must be escaped with a backslash in case-insensitive interpreted regular expression search string on which the space character is interpreted as literal character because of using /C: and /R and not as OR expression as on omitting /C:. For 100% safety on processing later only correct file names /X is additionally used to output only file names on which entire file name is matched by the search expression.
This time the FOR loop should not assign the entire file name to loop variable I. There is of interest only the string between the first dot after V1 and the file extension .xlsx. For that reason the FOR option delims=. is used to split the file names on dots and option tokens=2 is used to instruct command FOR to assign the second dot delimited string to loop variable I which is the incremented file number.
A simple integer comparison is done to determine if the file number of current file name is greater than file number assigned currently to environment variable FileNumber in which case this greater file number is assigned to the environment variable FileNumber.
The local environment with enabled delayed expansion is no longer needed after knowing the greatest file number of the existing files if there is one at all. So this environment is destroyed which would mean the environment variable FileNumber would have again the number -1 as assigned to the environment variable in initial environment. Please read this answer for details about the commands SETLOCAL and ENDLOCAL. So to pass the current value of FileNumber in current environment to FileNumber in previous environment the command line with endlocal contains additionally the command set "FileNumber=%FileNumber%" which is processed by cmd.exe, for example, to set "FileNumber=12" before executing the command ENDLOCAL. That simple trick is used to pass the greatest file number value to FileNumber in previous environment.
See also:
How does the Windows Command Interpreter (CMD.EXE) parse scripts?
Single line with multiple commands using Windows batch file
The greatest file number of an existing file or -1 is incremented by one before copying the newest file in source folder with this number and current date in file name to the target folder with verification that the file data were really correct written on target storage media.
The batch file is exited with exit code 3 in case of file copying failed for whatever reason.
Finally the batch file processing ends with explicitly restoring initial execution environment. The last command ENDLOCAL would be not really necessary because of Windows command processor runs it implicit on exiting processing of this batch file as done for example on execution of one of the three commands exit /B.
For understanding the used commands and how they work, open a command prompt window, execute there the following commands, and read entirely all help pages displayed for each command very carefully.
copy /?
dir /?
echo /?
endlocal /?
exit /?
findstr /?
for /?
goto /?
set /?
setlocal /?
wmic /?
wmic os /?
wmic os get /?
wmic os get localdatetime /?
PS: The greatest possible file number is 2147483647. But a day has only 86400 seconds and more than 65535 files in one directory would be a real problem, too. So the maximum file number 2147483647 should be never reached if no user renames a file in target folder to exceed that maximum number.

How to add time stamp to log lines in log file from batch file output?

I want to add time stamp to log lines from batch output.
Here is my batch file:
#Echo off
SET LOGFILE=MyLogFile.log
call :Logit >> %LOGFILE%
exit /b 0
:Logit
set "affix=%date%_%time%"
set "affix=%affix::=%"
set "affix=%affix:/=%"
xcopy "I:\DF\AB\Data.xlsx" "D:\TL\BACKUP\Data_%affix%.xlsx"*
Output of log file:
I:\DF\AB\Data.xlsx
1 File(s) copied
I want output log file looking like this:
I:\DF\AB\Data.xlsx
20180831_124500 : 1 File(s) copied
How could this be achieved?
Some more information:
The asterisk at end of target argument string is required for copying the file without prompt. There would be a prompt asking if target is a file or a directory if * would not be used at end of target file name.
xcopy is used because copied is a file from a network drive to local drive.
The output result is as below after running the batch file:
I:\DF\AB\Data.xlsx
08312018_163959.07 :I:\DF\AB\Data.xlsx
1 File(s) copied
May it be as below?
I:\DF\AB\Data.xlsx
08312018_163959.07 1 File(s) copied
So the region dependent date format is MM/DD/YYY and time format is HH:mm:ss.ms.
You're only XCopying one file, so you know that your last line of output on success will be the language dependent string 1 File(s) copied.As you've already limited the script to using a locale dependent %DATE% and %TIME%, I have assumed that language dependency for this task is fine.
Here therefore is a ridiculous looking example script:
#Echo Off
Set "srcfile=I:\DF\AB\Data.xlsx"
Set "destdir=D:\TL\BACKUP"
Set "logfile=MyLogFile.log"
For %%A In ("%srcfile%") Do Set "dstname=%%~nA" & Set "destext=%%~xA"
For /F "Tokens=1-2 Delims=|" %%A In ('
Echo F^|XCopy "%srcfile%" "|%DATE:/=%_%TIME::=%|" /L 2^>Nul ^&^
Echo F^|Xcopy "%srcfile%" "%destdir%\%dstname%_%DATE:/=%_%TIME::=%%destext%" /Y ^>Nul 2^>^&1
') Do (If Not "%%B"=="" Set "_=%%B"
If Defined _ If /I "%%A"=="%srcfile%" ((
Echo %%A&Call Echo %%_%% 1 File(s^) copied)>"%logfile%"))
You should change nothing other than the values for the variables on lines 2-4.However should you be using an existing logfile, you may wish to change > on the last line to >>
You can use echo| set /p=%affix% to eliminate the newline at echo time as:
#Echo off
SET LOGFILE=MyLogFile.log
call :Logit >> %LOGFILE%
exit /b 0
:Logit
set "affix=%date%_%time%"
set "affix=%affix::=%"
set "affix=%affix:/=%"
echo|set /p=%affix% :
xcopy "I:\DF\AB\Data.xlsx" "D:\TL\BACKUP\Data_%affix%.xlsx"*
Result:
I:\DF\AB\Data.xlsx
2018-08-31_124900 : 1 file(s) copied.
powershell -command "(New-TimeSpan -Start (Get-Date "01/01/1970") -End (Get-
Date)).TotalSeconds">LOG.TXT
Although this is not the format you suggested, this format is called epoch time.
The good thing about this format is that it is always a float value.
LOG.TXT will be the name of the log, make sure you are in the right directory.
I suggest following code producing exactly the initially wanted output in log file:
#echo off
setlocal EnableExtensions DisableDelayedExpansion
set "LOGFILE=MyLogFile.log"
del "%LOGFILE%" 2>nul
call :Logit >>"%LOGFILE%"
endlocal
exit /B 0
:Logit
set "FileDate=%DATE:~-4%%DATE:~-10,2%%DATE:~-7,2%_%TIME:~0,2%%TIME:~3,2%%TIME:~6,2%"
for /F "tokens=1* delims=:" %%I in ('%SystemRoot%\System32\xcopy.exe "I:\DF\AB\Data.xlsx" "D:\TL\BACKUP\Data_%FileDate%.xlsx*" /C /V /Y 2^>nul') do (
if not "%%J" == "" (
echo %%I:%%J
) else (
echo %FileDate% : %%I
)
)
goto :EOF
The region dependent date and time is reformatted to yyyyMMdd_HHmmss by using string substitutions of the dynamic environment variables DATE and TIME as explained in detail for example by the answer on the question: What does %date:~-4,4%%date:~-10,2%%date:~-7,2%_%time:~0,2%%time:~3,2% mean? For a much slower, but region independent solution, to get date/time in a specific format see for example the answer on: Why does %date% produce a different result in batch file executed as scheduled task?
The current date and time in format yyyyMMdd_HHmmss is assigned to the environment variable FileDate used twice on the next line, once in name of target file and once more in output of last line of reformatted output of command XCOPY.
The XCOPY command line used here is for example:
C:\Windows\System32\xcopy.exe "I:\DF\AB\Data.xlsx" "D:\TL\BACKUP\Data_20180831_163959.xlsx*" /C /R /V /Y 2>nul
This command line is executed by FOR in a separate command process started by FOR with cmd.exe /C in background. FOR captures all lines written to handle STDOUT of this command process before processing the captured lines.
XCOPY outputs to handle STDOUT the names of the copied files with full path and as last line a summary information. Errors on file copying are written to handle STDERR which are suppressed by redirecting them to device NUL.
Read also the Microsoft article about Using command redirection operators for an explanation of 2>nul. The redirection operator > must be escaped with caret character ^ on FOR command line to be interpreted as literal character when Windows command interpreter processes this command line before executing command FOR which executes the embedded xcopy command line with using a separate command process started in background.
The asterisk * at end of target file name should be within the double quotes of second argument string and not outside because otherwise cmd.exe respectively xcopy.exe has to correct this wrong syntax.
Please note that the trick with * at end of target file name works here by chance because source and target file have same file extension and the source file name is always shorter than the target file name. Otherwise the command would fail or target file gets an unwanted name being a concatenation of target file name + the characters of source file name after n characters of target file name.
In general there are better methods to avoid a halt on prompt which XCOPY requests in case of a single file is copied with a new file name. The letter to answer the prompt can be output first to STDOUT redirected to handle STDIN of XCOPY command as demonstrated language independent in answer on batch file asks for file or folder.
The captured output of XCOPY is processed by FOR line by line with skipping empty lines and lines starting with a semicolon ; as being the default end of line character of option eol= not used here.
The goal here is to output all lines with a full qualified file output by XCOPY in background command process also in this command process, but output the last line with the summary information different by prepending it with the date/time in wanted format, a space, a colon and one more space.
For that reason the default line splitting behavior on spaces/tabs with assigning only first substring (token) to specified loop variable I is modified here by the options tokens=1* delims=:. FOR splits up a line on colons now.
Only the lines with a full qualified file name starting with a drive letter and a colon contain a colon at all. On such lines the drive letter is assigned to specified loop variable I as specified by tokens=1. The rest of a file name line after first colon is assigned without any further splitting to next loop variable according to ASCII table to loop variable J which is here everything after the colon after drive letter.
The summary information line does not contain a colon. For that reason FOR assigns the entire summary information to loop variable I and J holds an empty string.
The loop variable J is never empty on a line with a file name starting with a drive letter and a colon. This fact is used here to determine if the line from XCOPY should be output as is with inserting the removed colon between drive letter and file path + file name + file extension or output the summary information with date/time at beginning.
Please note that this method works only on copying files from a drive with a drive letter. A different method would be necessary for source files with a UNC path.
In fact copying a single file can be done much easier with command COPY instead of XCOPY even from/to a network drive or when source/target file name is specified with a UNC path. COPY has also the options /V and /Y and even /Z like XCOPY. COPY does not create the target directory structure like XCOPY, but this can be done with command MD before. COPY can't overwrite a read-only file as XCOPY can do on using option /R, but this limitation of COPY is most likely not relevant here. And COPY does not copy a file with hidden attribute set. However, in general copying a single file is nevertheless best done with command COPY instead of XCOPY.
So here is one more solution with using command COPY which is faster than the XCOPY solution as there is no reason for executing the file copy in a separate command process, capture any line, split them and output them concatenated again or modified.
#echo off
setlocal EnableExtensions DisableDelayedExpansion
set "LOGFILE=MyLogFile.log"
md "D:\TL\BACKUP" 2>nul
del "%LOGFILE%" 2>nul
call :Logit >>"%LOGFILE%"
endlocal
exit /B 0
:Logit
set "FileDate=%DATE:~-4%%DATE:~-10,2%%DATE:~-7,2%_%TIME:~0,2%%TIME:~3,2%%TIME:~6,2%"
echo I:\DF\AB\Data.xlsx
copy /B /V /Y "I:\DF\AB\Data.xlsx" "D:\TL\BACKUP\Data_%FileDate%.xlsx" >nul 2>nul && echo %FileDate% : 1 File(s) copied|| echo %FileDate% : 0 File(s) copied
goto :EOF
This solution has also the advantage that the line output on success or error can be fully customized. COPY exits with a value greater 0 on an error like source file not available or target file/directory is write-protected currently or permanently.
Example of a better output for a single copied file on success or error (subroutine only):
:Logit
set "FileDate=%DATE:~-4%%DATE:~-10,2%%DATE:~-7,2%_%TIME:~0,2%%TIME:~3,2%%TIME:~6,2%"
copy /B /V /Y "I:\DF\AB\Data.xlsx" "D:\TL\BACKUP\Data_%FileDate%.xlsx" >nul 2>nul
if not errorlevel 1 (
echo %FileDate% : Copied successfully I:\DF\AB\Data.xlsx
) else (
echo %FileDate% : Failed to copy file I:\DF\AB\Data.xlsx
)
goto :EOF
It is of course also possible to use the command line
set "FileDate=%DATE:/=%_%TIME::=%"
in the batch file to get the date and time in format MMddyyyy_HHmmss.ms if that is really wanted now. I don't recommend this date/time format as it is not good on alphabetical list of all Data_*.xlsx files in directory D:\TL\BACKUP. The list of files sorted by name is with the date/time format yyyyMMdd_HHmmss automatically also sorted by date/time.
For understanding the used commands and how they work, open a command prompt window, execute there the following commands, and read entirely all help pages displayed for each command very carefully.
call /?
copy /?
del /?
echo /?
endlocal /?
exit /?
for /?
goto /?
if /?
md /?
set /?
setlocal /?
xcopy /?
See also:
Where does GOTO :EOF return to?
Single line with multiple commands using Windows batch file for an explanation of the operators && and ||.

Batch file rename using regex to match 4-digit year

In a windows batch file, I would like to rename files containing a 4-digit year (ex: "1999") in the filename by simply wrapping the year string in parentheses. Example:
home video 1998.avi
home vid 1987.mov
home_video (2002).avi
would become
home video (1998).avi
home vid (1987).mov
home_video (2002).avi
Notice that if it's already wrapped in parentheses, I'd prefer not to double them up.
So far, I have only been able to match the file names containing a year string with the following code:
#echo off
REM Match file names with 4-digit year
setlocal enableDelayedExpansion
for /f "tokens=1* delims=" %%A in (
'dir /B "*"^|findstr "[1-2][0-9][0-9][0-9]" '
) do #echo %%A
pause
REM Now what?
So I can output a list of matching file names, but from there I do not know how to target the grouped characters that findstr matched in order to parse the full file name into the 3 chunks I believe I would need: the substring preceding the matched group, the group itself, and the substring following the group.
Is this possible in a batch file?
I use since more than 20 years Total Commander (shareware) for file/folder renaming tasks which makes it possible with its built-in multi-rename tool to easily rename files and folders with just a few clicks on which the results can be viewed before really running the multi-rename and which even supports undo after having done the multi-rename. Well, in real I use Total Commander for nearly all file management tasks.
But it was interesting to develop the code for this very special file renaming task with all the limitations Windows command processor has because of not being designed for such tasks.
#echo off
setlocal EnableExtensions DisableDelayedExpansion
for /F "eol=| delims=" %%I in ('dir /A-D-H /B 2^>nul ^| %SystemRoot%\System32\findstr.exe /R /C:"19[89][0123456789]" /C:"20[012][0123456789]"') do call :RenameFile "%%I"
endlocal
goto :EOF
:RenameFile
set "FileName=%~n1"
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
set "Year=1980"
:YearLoop
set "NewName=!FileName:%Year%=(%Year%)!"
if "!NewName!" == "!FileName!" (
if %Year% == 2029 goto ExitSub
set /A Year+=1
goto YearLoop
)
if "!FileName:(%Year%)=!" == "!FileName!" ren "%~1" "!NewName!%~x1"
:ExitSub
endlocal
goto :EOF
FOR executes the following command line with using a separate command process started in background with cmd.exe /C:
dir /A-D-H /B 2>nul | C:\Windows\System32\findstr.exe /R /C:"19[89][0123456789]" /C:"20[012][0123456789]"
DIR outputs with the used options all names of non-hidden files in current directory with just file name + extension and without file path. An error message output in case of current directory does not contain any non-hidden file is suppressed by redirecting it from handle STDERR to device NUL with 2>nul.
The file names output by DIR are redirected with | to handle STDIN of command FINDSTR which searches case-sensitive with two regular expression interpreted search strings for four digits in range 1980 to 1999 or in range 2000 to 2029. There is no check made if a match of a four digit number is part of a larger number like 12000 or 19975. And there is no check made if there are already round brackets around the four digit number.
FINDSTR interprets also ¹, ², ³ as digit on using [0-9] which is the reason for using [0123456789] to really match only any of those 10 digit characters. Please read for more details about FINDSTR the articles SS64 - FINDSTR and What are the undocumented features and limitations of the Windows FINDSTR command?
FINDSTR outputs all file names containing four digits in range 1980 to 2029 to handle STDOUT of background command process.
Please read the Microsoft article about Using Command Redirection Operators for an explanation of 2>nul and |. The redirection operators > and | must be escaped with caret character ^ on FOR command line to be interpreted as literal characters when Windows command interpreter processes this command line before executing command FOR which executes the embedded dir command line with using a separate command process started in background.
FOR captures those lines and processes them line by line. The default for option eol= (end of line) is a semicolon and so FOR would ignore all file names starting with a semicolon. For that reason eol=| is specified because a vertical bar cannot be used in a file name and so all captured file names are processed by FOR.
FOR would split up each file name on spaces/tabs by default and assigns only the first substring (token) to specified loop variable I. This splitting behavior is disabled by using delims= which defines an empty list of delimiters. tokens=* is not the same as this results in removing leading spaces from the file names. File names can start with one or more spaces although this is very unusual.
A file name can contain also exclamation marks ! which must be also taken into account on using delayed environment variable expansion. Each file name is passed to a subroutine for further processing it.
A loop is used to replace all occurrences of year assigned to loop variable Year by the year in round brackets until new file name is different to current file name because the substitution was indeed positive for searched string. for /L %%J in (1980,1,2029) do ... was not used as this loop can't be exited once having found the right year in file name.
After having found the year in file name it is checked if this year is not already embedded in parentheses to avoid renaming a file with name home vid (1987).mov to home vid ((1987)).mov. So for example home video 1998.avi is renamed finally to home video (1998).avi.
A file name containing two numbers with four or more digits is also not processed correct as this code can't find out what is the year in such a file name.
This batch code is not really fast, but it should work with the listed limitations.
For understanding the used commands and how they work, open a command prompt window, execute there the following commands, and read entirely all help pages displayed for each command very carefully.
call /?
dir /?
echo /?
endlocal /?
findstr /?
goto /?
if /?
ren /?
set /?
setlocal /?
See also Where does GOTO :EOF return to?
PS: File names with ( or ) in name make processing them with a batch file very often more difficult as in this case the file name must be always enclosed in double quotes like for file names containing a space character because of ( and ) have also a special meaning for Windows command processor cmd.exe as it can be seen on code above. See also How does the Windows Command Interpreter (CMD.EXE) parse scripts?

How get specific word from the file using batch scripting?

I have a file of which the contents are as follows which are in consecutive lines,
VERSION=7.0.2
BUILD=03bbabbd5c0f
PRODUCT=splunk
PLATFORM=Windows-AMD64
From this I only want the VERSION. I tried using the following command:
FOR /F "usebackq tokens=1 eol=P" %G IN ("C:\ProgramFiles\SplunkUniversalForwarder\etc\splunk.version") DO echo %G
Involved eol=P because it doesn't bring out the last two lines, but I don't want the second line too. Can anyone help? Actually the main goal is to get only the version number not even the "VERSION=".
Simpler:
FOR /F "tokens=2 delims==" %G IN ('findstr "VERSION" "C:\ProgramFiles\SplunkUniversalForwarder\etc\splunk.version"') DO echo %G
Use findstr command to select the desired line, that may be at any position in the file...
Along the lines of my comment.
At the Command Prompt:
For /F "UseBackQ EOL=P Tokens=1* Delims==" %A In ("%ProgramFiles%\SplunkUniversalForwarder\etc\splunk.version") Do #Echo %B
As a batch file:
For /F "UseBackQ EOL=P Tokens=1* Delims==" %%A In ("%ProgramFiles%\SplunkUniversalForwarder\etc\splunk.version") Do #Echo %%B
In a batch file use this code:
#echo off
for /F "usebackq tokens=1* delims==" %%A in ("C:\Program Files\SplunkUniversalForwarder\etc\splunk.version") do if /I "%%~A" == "VERSION" if not "%%~B" == "" set "Version=%%~B" & goto HaveVersion
echo Error: Could not find VERSION= with a version string in file:
echo C:\Program Files\SplunkUniversalForwarder\etc\splunk.version
pause
goto :EOF
:HaveVersion
echo Version is: %Version%
pause
Please note the space in Program Files.
The command FOR with the used option /F reads the specified file line by line with skipping empty lines and lines starting with ; which is the default for eol (end of line) option.
The option usebackq is required to get the full qualified file name enclosed in double quotes interpreted as file name and not as string to process. The double quotes " around full qualified file name are required because of space character.
delims== redefines the delimiters for splitting the lines into substrings (tokens) from default space and horizontal tab to equal sign. So FOR splits now the lines using only = as delimiter character for the strings.
tokens=1* means that the first equal sign delimited substring should be assigned to loop variable A. And the rest of the line after the first equal sign(s) should be assigned without any further splitting to next loop variable according to ASCII table which is in this case the loop variable B. Now it should be also clear why loop variables are case-sensitive while environment variables are not case-sensitive. It makes a difference on what is the next loop variable if the specified loop variable is A or a.
On each loop run first a case-insensitive string comparison is made to check if the version string is at beginning of current line. If this first condition is true a second IF condition is used to verify that there is really a version string right to the equal sign in the file. If this second condition is also true the version string is assigned to environment variable Version and the loop is exited by continuing the batch file processing with a jump to the line below label HaveVersion. So the other lines in file are not further processed by FOR.
In general it is better to reference the environment variable ProgramFiles with %ProgramFiles% instead of using C:\Program Files as the standard program files directory for 64-bit applications on Windows x64 respectively for 32-bit applications on Windows x86 can be on any drive with any folder name. But the Windows WOW64 Implementation Details must be taken into account if the batch file should work on 32-bit Windows, on 64-bit Windows in 64-bit environment and on 64-bit Windows in 32-bit environment. See also Wikipedia article about Windows Environment Variables.
For understanding the used commands and how they work, open a command prompt window, execute there the following commands, and read entirely all help pages displayed for each command very carefully.
echo /?
for /?
goto /?
if /?
pause /?
set /?
See also Single line with multiple commands using Windows batch file for an explanation of operator &.

How to read and print contents of text file line by line?

So, I have no clue on how to have CMD echo lines from a *.txt text file one at a time with a tiny delay to make it seem like it's processing.
Is this even possible with a batch alone?
I've tried doing research, but I can't find sufficient text manipulation to be able to do this, but I do know how to make a pause between each command and how to do loops.
Let us assume the text file TestFile.txt should be output line by line which is an ANSI encoded text file with just ASCII characters containing this text:
Line 1 is with nothing special. Next line 2 is an empty line.
;Line 3 with a semicolon at beginning.
Line 4 has leading spaces.
Line 5 has a leading horizontal tab.
Line 6 is with nothing special. Next line 7 has just a tab and four spaces if used internet browser does not remove them.
Line 8 is ! with exclamation marks ! in line!
? Line 9 starts with a question mark.
: Line 10 starts with a colon.
] Line 11 starts with a closing square bracket.
The batch file below outputs this text file line by line with one second delay between each line with the exception of second line which is completely empty.
#echo off
title Read line by line with delay
setlocal EnableExtensions DisableDelayedExpansion
rem Use command TIMEOUT by default for 1 second delay. But use
rem PING in case of TIMEOUT does not exist as on Windows XP.
set "DelayCommand=%SystemRoot%\System32\timeout.exe /T 1 /NOBREAK"
if not exist %SystemRoot%\System32\timeout.exe set "DelayCommand=%SystemRoot%\System32\ping.exe 127.0.0.1 -n 2"
for /F "usebackq eol=¿ delims=" %%I in ("TestFile.txt") do (
echo(%%I
%DelayCommand% >nul
)
endlocal
pause
The strange looking character ¿ after eol= is an inverted question mark with hexadecimal Unicode value 00BF used to output third line correct. A line with an inverted question mark at beginning would not be output because of this redefinition of end of line character.
This batch file code is not designed to output any type of text file with any type of character encoding independent on which characters contains the text file. The Windows command line environment is not designed for output of any text file.
It is also possible to use a different, unquoted syntax to specify the FOR options delims, eol and usebackq to define an empty list of delimiters and no end of line character:
#echo off
title Read line by line with delay
setlocal EnableExtensions DisableDelayedExpansion
rem Use command TIMEOUT by default for 1 second delay. But use
rem PING in case of TIMEOUT does not exist as on Windows XP.
set "DelayCommand=%SystemRoot%\System32\timeout.exe /T 1 /NOBREAK"
if not exist %SystemRoot%\System32\timeout.exe set "DelayCommand=%SystemRoot%\System32\ping.exe 127.0.0.1 -n 2"
for /F usebackq^ delims^=^ eol^= %%I in ("TestFile.txt") do (
echo(%%I
%DelayCommand% >nul
)
endlocal
pause
Thanks goes to aschipfl for this alternate syntax of the three FOR options with using escape character ^ to escape the equal signs and spaces in not double quoted options string to get interpreted by cmd.exe the string usebackq delims= eol= as one argument string for for /F.
There is ( instead of a space as usually used to output also correct line 7 with just a tab and some normal spaces. See also DosTips forum topic ECHO. FAILS to give text or blank line - Instead use ECHO/. echo/%%I does not correct output line 9 starting with a question mark.
It is not possible to define with an option that FOR does not ignore empty lines. But it is possible with FIND or FINDSTR to output a text file with all lines with a line number at beginning and so having no empty line anymore. The line number is enclosed in square brackets (FIND) or separated with a colon (FINDSTR) from rest of the line. It would be possible to assign to loop variable only the string after first sequence of ] or : after line number which in most cases means the entire line as in text file. But if a line in text file starts by chance with ] or :, FOR would remove this delimiter character too. The solution is this code:
#echo off
title Read line by line with delay
setlocal EnableExtensions DisableDelayedExpansion
rem Use command TIMEOUT by default for 1 second delay. But use
rem PING in case of TIMEOUT does not exist as on Windows XP.
set "DelayCommand=%SystemRoot%\System32\timeout.exe /T 1 /NOBREAK"
if not exist %SystemRoot%\System32\timeout.exe set "DelayCommand=%SystemRoot%\System32\ping.exe 127.0.0.1 -n 2"
for /F delims^=^ eol^= %%I in ('%SystemRoot%\System32\findstr.exe /N "^" "TestFile.txt" 2^>nul') do (
set "Line=%%I"
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
echo(!Line:*:=!
endlocal
%DelayCommand% >nul
)
endlocal
pause
FINDSTR searches in the specified file with the regular expression ^ for matching lines. ^ means beginning of a line. So FINDSTR does not really search for a string in the lines of the file because of every line in a file has a beginning, even the empty lines. The result is a positive match on every line in the file and therefore every line is output by FINDSTR with the line number and a colon at beginning. For that reason no line processed later by for /F is empty anymore because of all lines start now with a line number and a colon, even the empty lines in the text file.
2^>nul is passed to cmd.exe started in background as 2>nul and results in redirecting an error message output by FINDSTR to handle STDERR to the device NUL to suppress the error message. FINDSTR outputs an error message if the file to search does not exist at all or the file cannot be opened for read because of missing NTFS permissions which allow that or because of the text file is currently opened by an application which denies the read access to this file as long as being opened by the application.
cmd.exe processing the batch file captures all lines output by FINDSTR to handle STDOUT of cmd.exe started in background and FOR processes now really all lines in the file after FINDSTR finished and the background command process closed itself.
The entire line with line number and colon output by FINDSTR executed in a separate command processes started by FOR with %ComSpec% /c and the command line within ' as additional arguments is assigned to loop variable I which is assigned next to environment variable Line.
Then delayed expansion is enabled as needed for next line which results in pushing address of current environment variables list on stack as well as current directory path, state of command extensions and state of delayed expansion before creating a copy of the current environment variables list.
Next the value of environment variable Line is output, but with substituting everything up to first colon by nothing which results in the output of the real line as stored in text file without the line number and the colon inserted at beginning by FINDSTR.
Finally the created copy of environment variables list is deleted from memory, and previous states of delayed expansion and command extension are popped from stack and set as well as the current directory path is set again as current directory and previous address of environment variables list is restored to restore the list of environment variables.
It is of course not very efficient to run for each line in text file the commands setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion and endlocal doing much more than just enabling/disabling delayed expansion, but this is necessary here to get lines with an exclamation mark correct assigned to environment variable Line and process next correct the value of Line. The efficiency loss is not really problematic here because of the delay of one second between output of each line.
For understanding the used commands and how they work, open a command prompt window, execute there the following commands, and read entirely all help pages displayed for each command very carefully.
echo /?
endlocal /?
findstr /?
for /?
if /?
ping /?
rem /?
set /?
setlocal /?
Despite your question being off topic, I have decided to include this because, there are already two answers and it can be achieved using a single line.
From a batch file:
#For /F Tokens^=1*Delims^=]^ EOL^= %%A In ('Find /N /V ""^<"C:\test.txt"') Do #Echo(%%B&>Nul PathPing 127.0.0.1 -n -q 1 -p 450
From the Command Prompt:
For /F Tokens^=1*Delims^=]^ EOL^= %A In ('Find /N /V ""^<"C:\test.txt"') Do #Echo(%B&>Nul PathPing 127.0.0.1 -n -q 1 -p 1350
Both examples do not omit empty lines from your source file, C:\test.txt, which can be changed as required.I have used PathPing for the 'tiny delay', because it seems more controllable; to adjust the delay all you need to do is change the last number until you find your most pleasing output.
Give a try for this batch script :
#echo off
Title Read line by line with delay
set "InputFile=TestFile.txt"
set "delay=1" Rem Delay one seconds, you can change it for your needs
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
for /f "tokens=*" %%A in ('Type "%InputFile%"') do (
set /a N+=1
set "Line[!N!]=%%A"
)
for /l %%i in (1,1,%N%) do (
echo !Line[%%i]!
Timeout /T %delay% /nobreak>nul
)
pause

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