I am looking to copy all text files on the C drive, but the program needs to avoid text files that are part of the system, and only copy the text files that have been created by the user.
Is there a built in way to do this, or do I need to get creative? If so, how would you go about it? I would like to keep it within batch and not involve powershell or anything like that.
I thought about using creation dates to determine whether or not a file is a system file, but that didn't work all the way.
You can generate a list of all systemfiles using the dir command. So
dir /b /as > %USERPROFILE%\excluded_Files.txt
Would generate a list of the systemfiles from that directory.
Using xcopy as described here you can now copy all files from one directory to another excluding the systemfiles.
The xcopy command should be something like this:
xcopy C:\firstDirectory\*.txt C:\secondDirectory /EXCLUDE:%USERPROFILE%\excluded_Files.txt
Edit
So your code that is there would copy all rtf and txt files from the whole C drive to Drive D folder E.
A batch-file using my method would look like this:
#echo off
cd /d C:\
dir /b /as /s > %USERPROFILE%\excluded_Files.txt
xcopy C:\*.rtf D:\E /EXCLUDE:%USERPROFILE%\excluded_Files.txt /s
xcopy C:\*.txt D:\E /EXCLUDE:%USERPROFILE%\excluded_Files.txt /s
Explanation:
#echo off supresses redundant output of the commands that would be displayed before execution.
cd /d C:\ changes the current execution directory to the root of the C drive. /d is added for potential drive change.
dir /b /as /s > %USERPROFILE%\excluded_Files.txt redirects the output of the dir command into a file in your userprofile (Usually C:\Users\yourUserName). The switch /b will only show the filenames and not size, creation date etc. /as will only list system files and /s makes the dir command work recursively through all directories.
xcopy C:\*.rtf D:\E /EXCLUDE:%USERPROFILE%\excluded_Files.txt /s will copy all rtf files from C:\ to D:\E and exclude all files from the list previously created (that will contain all system txt and rtf files (as well as others)). /s makes xcopy work recursively as for dir.
Next line is a copy of the same with txt files.
Related
I'm creating a batch file that deletes all Rar$DIa0.??? folders in the %TEMP% directory.
Is this possible, and how to do it?
The ??? is three randomized numbers. And that's where I have trouble with - deleting all folders that have Rar$DIa0. in the name.
for /d is designed for just this type of use. Something like this should work (remove one of the % if you're testing from the command line):
for /d %%i in ("%TEMP%\Rar$DIa0.???") do rd "%TEMP%\%%i"
The /d makes it work on directory names instead of file names.
If you want to make it easier on yourself, change to the %TEMP% folder first:
pushdir
cd /d %TEMP%
for /d %%i in ("Rar$DIa0.???") do rd "%%i"
The ??? makes it only act on folders that have three letters after a .. If your folders don't have just a three letter extension, change .??? to .*. If you've got a typo, and there is no actual . in the foldername, just remove it and use Rar$DIa0??? or Rar$DIa0*
You may want to test it first by changing rd to echo to make sure you get the folders you want before actually deleting them.
For more information about for (pun intended) type for /? from a command prompt.
The command line to use in a batch file for this task is:
#for /D %%I in ("%TEMP%\Rar$DIa0.*") do #rd /Q /S "%%I"
Command FOR with option /D searches in folder defined by environment variable TEMP for subfolders with folder name starting with Rar$DIa0. not having hidden or system attribute set.
The loop variable I holds for each found subfolder matching this folder pattern the name of found folder with full path without double quotes although the path to temp folder very often contains 1 or more spaces.
For that reason just the command RD with the parameters /Q for quiet execution and /S for deleting also all subfolders in the specified folder must be called with referencing the current value of loop variable I enclosed in double quotes.
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.
for /?
rd /?
By the way: WinRAR deletes the temporary folders usually automatically, except a file is opened from within an archive for viewing/modifying it in another application and WinRAR is closed before the other application is exited with the opened file. In this case WinRAR can't delete the temporary folder with temporarily extracted file because the file is still opened in another application. Of course also command RD can't delete the temporary folder if this folder is still the current directory of another application or a file in this folder is still opened by another application with a read/write access lock.
I need to be able to create a bat script to do 3 things:
Search for multiple specific filenames in a directory.
Find the most recently generated version based on each filename specified.
Copy that most file to a new dir.
I am very new to coding in general, so any assistance would be much appreciated.
So far all I have been able to do is figure out how to copy files from one location to another using the below:
xcopy /s c:\source\differentfilename1.csv d:\target\
xcopy /s c:\source\differentfilename2.txt d:\target
xcopy /s c:\source\differentfilename3.html d:\target
So far I have tried the following and its not copying the files over:
ECHO
CD D:\Data\
MKDIR D:\Data\CopyFilesHere
for /R %file in (Filename1.*) DO XCOPY "%file" D:\Data\CopyFilesHere
for /R %file in (Filename2.*) DO XCOPY "%file" D:\Data\CopyFilesHere
for /R %file in (Filename3.*) DO XCOPY "%file" D:\Data\CopyFilesHere
I have since noted there are subfolders I need to search through also.
I am trying to copy a folder and paste it in the same directory it was copied from.
For example
C:\Test is the main directory which consists of a folder ACDM, I would like to copy ACDM in the same directory and rename the new folder to ACDM1 which will have all the same files as ACDM has
I would like to do it using command prompt
I tried the following
C:>Xcopy C:\Test C:\Test\ACDM1 /E /U
Cannot perform a cyclic copy
0 File(s) copied
which fails, not sure hoe to add REN command with XCOPY command.
Need help ASAP as i would want to create a batch file which will create a copy of an existing folder and rename it according to a name retrieved from a text file..
xcopy "C:\Test\ACDM\*.*" "C:\Test\ACDM1\" /s/h/e/k/f/c
for /f "delims=" %%a in (yourtextfilename) do xcopy "C:\Test\ACDM" "C:\Test\%%a\" /E
as a .bat file line. Directly from the prompt, change each %% to %
I've assumed (for lack of futher information) that your textfile contains just the one line
ACDM1
neither do you specify the textfilename tou want to use.
xcopy C:\Test\ACDM C:\Test\ACDM1\ /E /Q
I have a strange problem with xcopy in Windows XP Professional. I don't know if its a stupid question as I am specifying only a file as the source, so should I even expect any other behavior ? This is it:
I am using xcopy <src> <dest> /s/y.
<src>=C:\sourcefolder\a\b\c\d\something.java and
<dest>=C:\destinationfolder.
Now xcopy copies the file but does not create the directory structure \a\b\c\d\ inside C:\destinationfolder .
what I want is C:\destinationfolder\a\b\c\d\something.java and
what I get is C:\destinationfolder\something.java
I have tried to run it in destination folder C:\destinationfolder by specifying a . for target folder
Tried it without any target in above
There is a script I have which calls xcopy iteratively so I am left with C:\destinationfolder\many java files without any directory structure.
A. Yes I have done xcopy /? to see all options
B. /T also does not create any empty directory structure
C. I can not go to source folder a\b\c\d\ and run xcopy . <dest>
UPDATE
I removed my previous answer on using ROBOCOPY. I believe the following will do what you want using XCOPY.
Assuming your folder structure is like this:
SOURCE = C:\MyJavaStuff\A\B\C\D\something.java
DEST = C:\MyDestination
Run XCOPY like this:
XCOPY C:\MyJavaStuff\something*.java C:\MyDestination /S /E
Note the * in something*.java.
The problem is that you are specifying which file to copy in the source. xcopy won't create the folder structure in this case. However, if you change your call to xcopy to
xcopy *.java C:\myfolder /s/y
it will copy the .java files and the folder structure as well. You need to specify a wildcard for this call to work as you want. If you want only to copy specific files, you will have to adjust the call to xopy, e.g.:
xcopy something.jav* C:\myfolder /s/y
Edit
You say that you get the list of files to copy from another command. If you can output this list of files in a text file, you could do the following:
FOR /F "tokens=* delims=," %F in (d:\test\list.txt) DO xcopy src\%~nxF* .\dest /S /Y
What this command does is read a text file ("d:\test\list.txt" in this case), read every line, and for each file, run xcopy, adding a wildcard at the end of the file name to make sure it creates the folder structure.
I'm assuming here that:
You can get the list of files in a text file, with only the file names (and optinally the paths)
You know the source folder ("C:\sourcefolder" in your example, the folder structure "a\b\c\d" does not need to be known) and can use it in the FOR command.
You can also use the following form:
FOR /F "tokens=* delims=," %F in ('cmd') DO xcopy src\%~nxF* .\dest /S /Y
where cmd needs to be replace with the command you use to generate your list of files to copy.
Note that if you use this FOR command in a batch file, you need to replace %F with %%F (and %~nxF* with %%~nxF*).
I had a look at the xcopy switches and you can copy the directory structure with /T, although that doesn't copy empty directories you can override this with /E. So your command would look like this:
xcopy C:\sourcefolder\a\b\c\d\something.java C:\destinationfolder /T /E /S /Y
Hope this helps!
In order to get C:\destinationfolder\a\b\c\d\something.java XCOPY needs to know how much of C:\sourcefolder\a\b\c\d\something.java to duplicate.
You can use:
C:
cd \sourcefolder
XCOPY something.java* C:\destinationfolder\ /S
Just be aware that this may have the side effect of also copying C:\sourcefolder\oops\something.java to C:\destinationfolder\oops\something.java as well as any other matches for something*.java under C:\sourcefolder\.
It seems to me that xcopy is typically used for copying directory trees, not single files (though it can work). And, xcopy will recreate the directory structure under the source folder in the target folder. If xcopy is given the /i switch, the target folder is assumed to be a directory. It will be created if it does not exist, even if there are multiple parents that need to be created.
You have C:\MyJavaStuff\A\B\C\D\something.java - that is your source. You want to end up with something.java not in C:\destinationfolder, but in C:\destinationfolder\A\B\C\D - so that is your target. You don't even have C:\destinationfolder. That is OK, with /i the entire path will be created.
xcopy /i c:\MyJavaStuff\A\B\C\D\something.java C:\destinationfolder\A\B\C\D
If something.java were the only file under C:\MyJavaStuff, you could also use
xcopy /sei c:\MyJavaStuff C:\destinationfolder
That would recreate the entire tree structure, copying your file. But if there are other files (and folders) under MyJavaStuff they would also be copied.
I have written a very similar batch file using xcopy. Perhaps what I did will help you.
This is the command I used:
xcopy "c:\Data Files\Dave's Data\*.*" "m:\Dave's Data" /R/D /E/H
In this case, Dave's Data on the source contains an entire directory tree containing at least 50,000 files & exceeding 75GB data. It runs perfectly on Windows XP
I found /T was unnecessary as the directory tree is copied. I also found /S was unnecessary as /E copied directories & sub-directories including empty ones. I included /R to copy & overwrite read only files on the destination. /H copied hidden directories. /D copied only newer files. I use this as a daily backup tool for my data.
The only problem I have is while this command will work on Windows 7 the first time, it will not work on subsequent runs when the destination directory tree exists. I suspect this is due to a privilege issue as the xcopy command will work on subsequent runs on Windows 7 within a cmd.exe window.
From a DOS command I want to move all files that do not match a file name pattern.
Something like this:
For example I want to move all files that do not start with "aaa"
for %i in (*) do if not %i == aaa* move %i .\..
XCOPY is designed to work with 'exclude' lists... See below:
dir /b /a-d "source"|findstr /b "aaa" >"%temp%\aaafiles.tmp"
xcopy "source" "destination\" /exclude:%temp%\aaafiles.tmp /y
The first line performs a DIR (directory) listing of the source folder, listing files in bare format (/b) ignoring directory names (/a-d). The output is piped into the FINDSTR command.
FINDSTR looks at each filename and compares it's beginning (/b) with the string "aaa".
If the start of a filename matches the string "aaa", the filename is redirected (written) to the file aaafiles.tmp in the users TEMP directory.
The /b is vital because you don't want to exclude files such as theaaafile.txt.
The XCOPY command copies files from the source folder to the destination folder except files that are listed in aaafiles.tmp.
Prompting to overwrite existing files (/y) is turned off.
source and destination will need to be replaced your own foldernames.
Robocopy is a possibility
robocopy source destination *.* /mov /XF aaa*.*
for options see here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc733145.aspx
If you don't mind fiddling with the archive bit, you can use it to selectively copy and delete files based on a file mask.
Move (copy and delete) all files except those beginning w/"aaa" from current directory to "dest". May also specify full source path.
attrib +a *.*
attrib -a aaa*.*
xcopy /a [or /m] *.* dest
del /aa /q *.*
One way you can do it is create a list of the files to move in a temporary file. Then use the file in with the for command. Generate the list using findstr.
> dir/b/a-d | findstr /v aaa* > "%temp%\#movelist"
> for /f %f in (%temp%\#movelist) do move %f ...
The first command gets a list of all files (with no directories) in the current directory and then pipes the list to findstr which excludes (/v) filenames that match the pattern and puts it in the file #movelist in the temp directory. The second command just takes those results so you may do what you will with them (move it).
There's probably a better way to do it in a single command without the temporary file, I just don't know how to write it. I'm not sure how to call the dir command from within the for command. AFAIK it only takes program files that exist, not builtin commands.
In some cases it can be made more simple. For example, I had to copy recursively a bunch of directories but excluding all images (png and bmp files), so I simply created an excludeList.txt file containing:
.png
.bmp
and run
xcopy /S /I <source> <dest> /exclude:c:\excludeList.txt
It will match any file or directory containing .png, but not necessarily ending by .png. (I did not investigate if smart use of wildcards or regular expressions are possible).
It does not handle your particular example (for which you have already a good answer) but it solved my problem, and this page is what I found when I googled in search of a solution :)
Not ideal, but moving all files to the destination and moving the files back to the source is a fast way with actual move operation (no copies). Of course this assumes there are no files in destination matching the wildcard.
move source\*.* destination\ && move destination\aaa*.* source\