Windows batch file ren using date variable - batch-file

Learned batch a while ago in school, haven't ever used it until now b/c I had an idea. Just for fun I wanted to mess around with powercfg batteryreport with my new laptop, but I want to archive. I was going to try and figure out how to have the file powercfg batteryreport spits out changed in some sort of numerical order but I don't even know where to begin, so I decided to just make a new line that takes the current file created and adds the date. All of this is taking place inside of a special folder I created, so pathing isnt necessary.
#echo off
powercfg batteryreport
rename "battery-report.html" "batteryreport %date%.html"
This exact script works without the date variable, but never with it in, but of course I need a variable present in order to have multiple reports saved, as opposed to it writing over itself every time. I've tried messing with all spacings, quotes vs no quotes, no luck. Help (or a better way, preferably with explanation) would be greatly appreciated.

In all likelihood, your date format contains / which is illegal in a filename.
Use %date:/=-% in place of %date%. this converts each / to - (see set /? from the prompt for docco)
Equally, you could use %time::=.% o convert the time to a version usable in a filename.
To remove dayname, you need to use an intermediate variable:
set "dateonly=%date:* =%"
ren ... "...%dateonly:/=-%..."
The * means "all of the characters up to and including the first space" and this is replaced by nothing (the string following the =)
see set /? from the prompt for details.

Related

Batch Scripting percent tilde string and starting a process syntax understanding

I need help with understanding the following Batch script structure:
This is named Profile_something_schedule.bat
call somePath\lib.cmd :someLabel reqPath
call somePath\lib.cmd :someLabel reqKey
%reqPath% "%~someFileName" /vv_pwd=%reqKey% /bProfile_something_schedule /min
I have a lot of difficulty understanding why this script works.
I do not know why the 3rd line is valid. The behavior produced is that the someFileName is run. I understand it as starting the file as a process. Then why isn't the start command needed? I don't see any batch documentation saying you can simply run a file by writing its pathed filename.
I do not understand the syntax of "%~someFileName". From online searching about it almost every source shows you the batch call parameter table, saying things like %~1 expands %1..., %~f1 expands %1 some other way, etc. All of them involve some kind of number from 0 to 9 to correspond to the parameter position. However, I cannot find any specification of %~someString being legal. There is no parameter positional information from the someFileName string, it is a filename.extension string. Still, it is quite likely this line is trying to run this format.
What does "/vv_pwd=%reqKey% /bProfile_something_schedule" mean? In the lib.cmd that was called previously, there were variables reqPath and reqKey and I am quite certain it is trying to pass the value of reqPath and reqKey from the lib.cmd into the variables here and then I guess it is trying to use the reqKey value as a parameter, which is a password required to run the file.
Inspecting the file, it contains some script of some paid software specific format, it only has variable name v_pwd inside but not vv_pwd. I do not know what the /bProfile_... is for. The part without the /b is exactly this batch file's name. But together with the /b I don't know what it means. The /v and /b look like some kind of options to me but I cannot see any specification explaining as there is no command beginning line 3 just some path. I guess the /min option refers to starting window minimized which is an option for the command start, yet there is no option of /v. The /B in start means to start application without creating window, which is quite unnecessary to have /min if you are not going to create a window in the first place. And it doesn't make sense to use /B directly followed by some string of Profile_something_Schedule.
FYI, the lib.cmd starts with call %*, which I would consider as trying to call all passed parameters and assuming those parameters are actually batch files that can be called.
Another thought I have is that the 2nd line call connects with the 3rd line so the 3rd line may not need a command. But I can't make sense of it. The someFileName is not of the Batch extension so I doubt it can be called as the call doc says it is for batch programs. If I want to run non-batch programs I need to use start right?
Would greatly appreciate your help!
The variable pathext contains a semicolon-separated list of executable filenames that may be appended as an extension to myexecutable. if the first string on a batch line is not a cmd internal command (like set, for etc.) then cmd tries to find myexecutable + each of the extensions in pathext in turn, first in the current directory, and then in each directory in the path (another semicolon-separated list of directories) and runs the first name found, or fails if none are found. That first string may also have an Associated extension, which then runs the application with which the extension is associated (like .txt runs notepad by default)
Neither do I, and I can't see that even knowing what the actual strings being executed by %reqPath% are would assist. See for /? from the prompt for more documentation on other ~ operators - or search SO for thousands of uses.
vv_pwd=%reqKey% : %reqKey% is replaced by the value of the variable reqKey evidently returned by the previous line. / is used in Windows to mean "here's a switch parameter for the executable", so evidently /vv_pwd=[the contents of reqKey], /bProfile_something_schedule and /min mean something to the executable %reqPath%. Quite what is anyone's guess.
The fact that lib.cmd's first line is call %* would mean that lib.cmd contains a library of routines. Since each call you have shown is of the form :string1 string2 then the resultant command executed would be call :string1 string2. call :string1 will call the routine contained within "lib.cmd" with the label string1: supplying string2 (and presumably optionally string2 string3... as parameters. Evidently, string2 is the name of the variable into which lib.cmd places the required data.
Without the :, string1 would be any executable that cmd can locate using the method in (1). It does not have to be a batch, but commonly is a batch.

Batch File DIR Command to Text File Without Overwrite [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
How do I get current date/time on the Windows command line in a suitable format for usage in a file/folder name?
(30 answers)
Closed 1 year ago.
I'm trying to preserve the dates of files that I'm backing up onto an external drive, in the unlikely event that the dates get messed up for whatever reason (I had a previous experience where I lost date information and had no backup). I'm doing this through a batch file containing the following:
#ECHO OFF
cd E:\PCBackup
dir /s > dirlist.txt
I would simply run this batch file after running my backup using FreeFileSync. Then, if I need to, I can search the txt file for the filename and see its corresponding date.
However, when this batch file runs, if there is a previous dirlist.txt, then it is overwritten with the new dirlist.txt. So, in a scenario where the dates get messed up and I don't yet realize it, if I run this batch file, it will overwrite the previous dirlist.txt with one that has the messed up dates, and I'd lose the date information!
So, what I think I want it to do is, if dirlist.txt already exists, then create a new one, say something like dirlist1.txt, so that I can have several "backups" of the text file that I can manually delete if necessary.
I've seen that one can instead use >> with something like dir /s >> dirlist.txt to append to an existing file instead of overwriting, but I don't want to append if I don't have to, I'd still like to create a new file.
Is there a way to accomplish this? I'm also open to alternative/simpler ways of preserving the dates, if there are any. Please keep in mind that I know little about CMD commands or programming, outside of a computer science course I took years ago. Thank you.
You will be told there are umpteen duplicate ways to do this so in this 22 nd year of the 1st century :-) Windows has no native way of returning a sequential Iso Date the primary answer will be use powershell and for my locale it needs to be called in a suitable format, introducing a delay.
powershell get-date -format "{yyyy-MMM-ddTHH_mm+01Z}"
Note:- colons : are not allowed, and for me 20 seconds later on one machine (but it does get faster with use) and 12-5 seconds later on this one, I get
2021-07-07T21_55+01Z
but actually its now 2021-Jul-07 21:56
I have found that the MakeCab method is faster and reliable but again the format is not pure sequencing and the Jul will NOT appear before Dec in a file list without significant batch file processing.
2021-Dec-31 23:00:00.txt
2021-Jul-08 21:54:20.txt
So in a .cmd I prefer a more instant result thus my clock is set to International dates (You will need to look at your LOCALE clock setting bottom right for your own construction.)
set isodate=%date:~0,10%
instantly returns
isodate=2021-07-07 and I can then use that for filename
#ECHO OFF
cd E:\PCBackup
set "isodate=%date:~0,10%"
dir /s > %isodate%-dirlist.txt
dir returns includes 2021-07-07-dirlist.txt
If you want to run several times in a day use
#ECHO OFF
cd E:\PCBackup
set "isodate=%date:~0,10%"
set "isotime=%time:~0,2%-%time:~3,2%-%time:~6,2%"
dir /s > %isodate%T%isotime%+01Z-dirlist.txt
Amend that any way you wish for your timezone, thus your own clock whatever your date format be it :-
31/2021/12
look at the way I split %time :~ start#base 0 , # of chars %-
one example for an "English" clock date of 31/12/2021 would be simply reverse to
"isodate=%date:~6,4%-%date:~3,2%-%date:~0,2%"
For American %date%=Thu 07/08/2021 use
"isodate=%date:~10,4%-%date:~4,2%-%date:~7,2%"

Using FINDSTR to search for a pattern and assign it to a variable

I have the following entry in the file Build.aip. I need to write a batch file that searches for "PackageFileName and prints the value assigned for that in the file. In this case, I need to print MyPackageName on the console:
<ROW BuildKey="DefaultBuild" BuildName="DefaultBuild" BuildOrder="1" BuildType="0" PackageFolder="C:\Build\Build.aip" PackageFileName="MyPackageName" Languages="en" InstallationType="4">
May you please give me some examples how I can do that? I seen in some forums that this can be done using FINDSTR.
Thanks in advance.
findstr "PackageFileName" Build.aip
If you want to make it case insensitive, add the /i argument.
For more details, type findstr /?
Updated for an example to use the for statement
FOR /F "token=2" %i in (`FINDSTR "PackageFileName" Build.aip`) do SET var=%i
A couple things to keep in mind here:
This version is based on Windows 8.1; it may work differently in different versions of Windows.
The token=2 is an example assuming that the word you are looking for is the second word in the line
If PackageFileName appears more than once in Build.aip, this code will break.
The findstring command is surrounded by back-ticks, not single quotes.
I haven't tested it; the SET may not actually survive the for loop. So test!
If you use it in a batch file, you must double all the % signs.

Batch incrementation from external file

I have a script who creates new tags in a SVN, and add some files. I want to automate this task so I would like to find some way to do automatically the incrementation for the tags name, from 1.0 to X.0.
I thought about a conf file who would contains "1.0" as a first version number and who would be overwrite at each call to the script. But not sure I can get the "1.0" value from the file and then do an incrementation on it in my script.
Any help would be really appreciate.
Thanks in advance
Don't create a seed configuration file. Instead, let the batch script default to 1.0 if file does not exist.
#echo off
setlocal
set "conf=version.conf"
if not exist "%conf%" (set version=1.0) else (
for /f "usebackq delims=." %%N in ("%conf%") do set /a version=%%N+1
)
set "version=%version%.0"
(echo %version%)>"%conf%"
I'm assuming you will never run this process multiple times in parallel - it can fail if you do run in parallel. Modifications can be made to lock the conf file so you can run in parallel if need be. See the accepted answer to how to check in command line if given file or directory is locked, that it is used by a process? for more info.
Take a look at keywords in Subversion using autoprops.
First, setup subversion to honor keyword expansion
enable-auto-props = yes
[auto-props]
version.txt = svn:keywords=Revision
Then, setup a simple file, let's call it version.txt with the $revision$ keyword and some random content.
$revision$
Random content
Then, in your batch file, recreate the version.txt file with new random content
echo $revision$ >version.txt
echo %random% %date% %time% >>version.txt
and check in this new file every time your batch file is run, so it will become
$revision 32 $
4214 Mon 21/01/2013 15:53:27,62
This way, subversion will keep an accurate version number of all the runs of the batch file, even in multiple clients and simultaneosly.
You might then extract and use the revision number from version.txt with code similar to
for /f "tokens=1,2" %%a in (version.txt) do (
if %%a==$revision (
echo Revision number is %%b
echo do something with %%b, create %%b tag or whatever
)
)
Since you don't say what language you want to use only general remarks can be given:
It certainly is possible to maintain a small 'version' file holding the 'dottet version number', something like 0.2.6 maybe. That files content can be read by any process. You should implement a little collection of methods to split that content into its numerical tokens (major and minor version and the like). Those numerical values can be processed by any mathematical function you like to use. For example you can increment them. Another method would be some 'implode' function that takes the numerical tokens and creates again a 'dottet version number' (now maybe 0.2.7...) and finally you can write that information back into the file. It certainly makes sense to allow an argument that controls which part of the version should be incremented.
Such scheme is not really efficient, but often sufficient.
Note, that such approach will only work if you can guarantee that it is always only a single process to access that version file. Otherwise multiple processes might overwrite each others results which certainly is a cause of problems.
As an alternative, maybe a more elegant alternative, you might consider treating the subversion repository itself as seed storage for your version number: instead of reading a special files content (what if that file is deleted or something else happens?) make a request to the tags folder inside subversion. It should contain all previously tagged versions. So that is precisely the information you want. Take all version numbers, sort them, take the highest one and process it as above.

Removing date and time stamp from a string with spaces in batch

I am making a program that automatically backs up files, stores up to a maximum of five of them, and has an option to restore any of the five files. When the files are backed up, it adds a date and time stamp in the format of YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS_filename.ext. In order to restore the file, it is necessary to first cut out the date stamp.
The method I am currently using to cut the date stamp off of the beginning of the file is as follows.
set VAR=%VAR:~16%
echo %VAR%
The problem being, if the backed up file is called "20120825_140343_file name.txt", the above method will only return "file," omitting anything after the space. The spaces in the file names need to be preserved for them to be recognized by the program using them.
tl;dr I need to cut the string 20120825_140343_file name.txt into just "file name.txt", but my method just returns "file."
If delimiters or something would help I could separate the date stamp and file name with a different character, I.E. 20120825_140343-file-name.txt
Your method, though inelegant and inflexible, should work. This tells me that you are not storing the entire filename in VAR. That is why %var:~16% only results in file, and not file name.txt. I assume that you assign VAR like this somewhere:
SET VAR=%1
You'll need to either do this:
SET VAR=%1 %2
Or insert double-quotes around the file name when you call your batch file, and then set var like this to remove the quotes:
SET VAR=%~1
That should be enough to get your batch to work.
====================================================
But, to answer the question you actually asked, I'll show you a method of extracting "file name.txt" from var that will work even if there are more or even less than 16 prefix characters.
Use the for /f statement, specify the 3rd token, with underscores as a delimiter. Here is a self-contained example. (To run from the command-line, change %%x to %x.
SET VAR=20120825_140343_file name.txt
for /f "tokens=3 delims=_" %%x in ("%VAR%") do set VAR=%%x
ECHO %VAR%
Just remember, this solution will NOT fix your problem if you do not fix your code to assure your VAR variable has the entire filename in it.
Have you tried this?
set VAR="%VAR:~16%"

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