How to copy newest file with Euro symbol in file name? - batch-file

Question

I have a file Staffel artikelen met € bedragen.xlsx and I'd like to copy it with new file name StaffelArtikelen.xlsx into a different directory. I think the Euro sign in file name creates an error.
How can I avoid this error:
Source files cannot be renamed on the source location.
I tried:
set dest1=\\serverb02\DATA\Databeheer\StaffelArtikelen.xlsx
set source=\\serverb02\DATA\Uitwisseling
pushd "%source%"
for /f "tokens=*" %%G in ('dir Staffel artikelen met *.xlsx /b /a-d /od') do SET "newest=%%G"
copy "%newest%" "%dest1%"
The result is a 1 kB file (should be +20 kB) in destination location. I expect StaffelArtikelen.xlsx.
Files in source directory:
DS-Staffel artikelen met%korting variable.xlsx
Staffel artikelen met%korting variable.xlsx
Staffel artikelen met € bedragen variable.xlsx
The latest modified file should be copied with StaffelArtikelen.xlsx as destination file name.

Answer 1

This batch file could be used for this task, too.
#echo off
setlocal EnableExtensions DisableDelayedExpansion
set "dest1=\\serverb02\DATA\Databeheer\StaffelArtikelen.xlsx"
set "source=\\serverb02\DATA\Uitwisseling"
for /F "eol=| delims=" %%I in ('dir "%source%\*Staffel artikelen met*.xlsx" /A-D-H /B /O-D 2^>nul') do (
copy /Y /B "%source%\%%I" "%dest1%" >nul
goto CopyDone
)
:CopyDone
rem Other commands can be inserted here.
endlocal
A file/folder name must be enclosed in " if it contains a space or one of these characters &()[]{}^=;!'+,`~ as explained by help of Windows command processor output on running in a command prompt window cmd /? on last help page. Other argument strings like variable=value of command set should be also enclosed in double quotes to get all characters inside quoted argument string interpreted as literal characters.
Command FOR with option /F and a command line specified between ' results in starting one more command process in background with %ComSpec% /c and the specified command line. So executed by FOR is with Windows being installed into C:\Windows:
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c dir "\\serverb02\DATA\Uitwisseling\*Staffel artikelen met*.xlsx" /A-D-H /B /O-D 2>nul
DIR searches
in directory \\serverb02\DATA\Uitwisseling
just for non-hidden files because of option /A-D-H (attribute not directory and not hidden)
matching the wildcard pattern *Staffel artikelen met*.xlsx
and outputs in bare format because of option /B just the names of the files without file path
ordered reverse by last modification date (default) because of option /O-D which means latest/newest modified file first and oldest file last.
The file names are output to handle STDOUT (standard output) of background command process. This output is captured by FOR respectively the command process running the batch file.
It is possible that no directory entry matches the specified search criteria resulting in printing an error message by DIR to handle STDERR (standard error) which is redirected by FOR to STDERR of command process running the batch file. This error message can be suppressed by redirecting it to device NUL by started cmd.exe running in background.
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 with option /F processes the captured standard output of started command process line by line after started cmd.exe terminated itself as follows:
Empty lines are always ignored by FOR, but empty lines do not occur here.
A line is split up by default into substrings using normal space and horizontal tab as delimiters and just first space/tab separated string is assigned to specified loop variable I. This line splitting behavior is not wanted in this case as the file names contain definitely spaces and the entire file name should be assigned to loop variable I and not just the file name part up to first space. For that reason delims= defines an empty list of delimiters to turn off line splitting completely.
Next FOR checks if first substring, i.e. entire file name in this case, starts with default end of line character ; which is a valid character for first character of a file name. For that reason eol=| redefines end of line character to vertical bar which no file name can contain according to Microsoft documentation page Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces.
BTW: Using just option tokens=* results in running the line splitting, but everything after leading spaces/tabs is assigned to specified loop variable even if there are spaces after first non-space character. It is very unusual that a file name starts with one or more spaces, but it is possible. tokens=* would assign the file name without the leading spaces to loop variable I and further processing fails because of file with missing spaces at beginning of file name is not found or in worst case a different file is processed having same file name as file to process after the removed leading spaces.
So on first iteration of the loop the file name of newest file found by DIR is assigned to the loop variable I without path. This file is copied as binary file to destination directory with new file name StaffelArtikelen.xlsx and overwriting in destination directory a file existing there already with same file name without prompting user.
Note: The file copy can fail if
source file data cannot be read because of missing file reading permissions or
source file is currently opened by an application which prevents reading the file data while opened by the application or
destination file cannot be written because of missing file writing permissions or
destination file exists already and is currently opened by an application which prevents overwriting the file data while opened by the application.
The provided batch file contains no check on file copy being successful or failed.
The command GOTO is used to exit the loop after newest file is copied to ignore all other file names output by DIR and continue batch file processing below the line with label CopyDone.
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 /?
for /?
goto /?
rem /?
set /?
setlocal /?

Answer 2

When dealing with file names containing spaces, you have to double quote them.
Otherwise dir will treat the space separated parts as individual items to list
Staffel
artikelen
met
*.xlsx
As there are presumably no files without extension Staffel, artikelen, met only *.xlsx will return the newest of ALL present excel files and
as you are not showing the source file in your batch it is copied to the new name without being noticed.
This should do as expected:
set dest1=\\serverb02\DATA\Databeheer\StaffelArtikelen.xlsx
set source=\\serverb02\DATA\Uitwisseling
pushd "%source%"
set "newest="
for /f "tokens=*" %%G in ('dir "Staffel artikelen met *.xlsx" /b /a-d /od') do SET "newest=%%G"
if defined newest (
copy "%newest%" "%dest1%"
) else (
Echo no file found matching "Staffel artikelen met *.xlsx"
)