Batch File to Move Files based on List of Strings - batch-file

I have searched for days with results of similar circumstances but none that exactly addresses my problem.
Problem: I have 10,000 files in C:\Data folder. They all have a file name such as 1234_File_Log_Date_Time.csv. 1234 is a serial number. I have a list of multiple serial in a SN.txt file. I would like to have a batch file read SN.txt, then copy the files found in C:\Test Data based on this list to another directory of C:\My Data. There are no duplicate files to contend with.
I have never written a batch file in my life so be gentle haha.

I have never written a batch file in my life... Read Command-Line Reference or Windows Commands.
For an initial look, start with a simple batch script which could appear like
#ECHO OFF >NUL
SETLOCAL EnableExtensions
pushd "C:\Data"
for /f "delims=" %%G in (SN.txt) do (
echo "%%~G"
)
popd
pause
Then replace the echo "%%~G" line (step by step) with
if exist "%%~G_*.csv" dir /B "%%~G_*.csv" (to see file names that are to be copied);
if exist "%%~G_*.csv" echo copy /B "%%~G_*.csv" "C:\My Data\" (to see commands that are to be performed);
if exist "%%~G_*.csv" copy /B "%%~G_*.csv" "C:\My Data\" (final edit to execute the commands).
Additional resources (required reading for any batch scripter):
(command reference) An A-Z Index of the Windows CMD command line
(additional particularities) Windows CMD Shell Command Line Syntax
(%~G etc. special page) Command Line arguments (Parameters)
(special page) EnableDelayedExpansion

Related

How to find and select newest file in a directory and restore with SQLRestore?

I want to make a batch or cmd file to automatically select the latest file in the directory D:\Romexis_Bilder\romexis_SQL_Backup. These are ZIP SQL backup files that are generated two times daily in the format yymmddhhmm.zip, e.g Romexis_db201805271200.zip on a server running Windows 2016 Server.
The latest added file to the directory (result of FOR /F) should then be used in SQL RESTORE (backup and ftp program Windows).
The idea was to use the FOR command
My draft:
Go into the directory:
pushd "D:\Romexis_Bilder\romexis_SQL_Backup"
Find the latest file. (I don't really know how to set the parameters here.)
for /f "tokens=*" %% in ('dir /D:\Romexis_Bilder\romexis_SQL_Backup /od') do set newest=%%D:\Romexis_Bilder\romexis_SQL_Backup
The result of FOR should be used in *.zip
cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Pranas.NET\SQLBackupAndFTP\
SqlRestore D:\Romexis_Bilder\romexis_SQL_Backup\*.zip -db Romexis_db -srv .\ROMEXIS -pwd password disconnect Romexis_db
I stuck with FOR, but don't know if there would also be another possibility.
I don't know if the last command line in question is really correct. I have some doubts output this line.
But this code can be used to get the name of the newest *.zip file according to last modification date without path.
#echo off
set "BackupFolder=D:\Romexis_Bilder\romexis_SQL_Backup"
for /F "eol=| delims=" %%I in ('dir "%BackupFolder%\Romexis_db*.zip" /A-D-H /B /O-D /TW 2^>nul') do set "NewestFile=%%I" & goto DatabaseRestore
echo ERROR: Could not find any *.zip backup file in folder:
echo "%BackupFolder%"
echo/
pause
goto :EOF
:DatabaseRestore
cd /D "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Pranas.NET\SQLBackupAndFTP"
SqlRestore.exe "%BackupFolder%\%NewestFile%" -db Romexis_db -srv .\ROMEXIS -pwd password disconnect Romexis_db
echo/
pause
FOR executes in a separate command process started with cmd.exe /C in background the command line:
dir "D:\Romexis_Bilder\romexis_SQL_Backup\*.zip" /A-D-H /B /O-D /TW 2>nul
DIR outputs to handle STDOUT of background command process
only names of non hidden files because of /A-D-H (attribute not directory and not hidden)
in bare format because of /B just the file name with file extension, but without file path
sorted reverse (newest first) by date because of /O-D
using write time (last modification time) because of /TW
in directory D:\Romexis_Bilder\romexis_SQL_Backup matching the pattern Romexis_db*.zip.
I recommend running this command line in a command prompt window to see at least once what DIR outputs.
DIR would output an error message to handle STDERR in case of no *.zip file found or the directory does not exist at all. This error message is suppressed by redirecting it 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 dir command line with using a separate command process started in background.
FOR captures the output written to STDOUT and processes the output line by line with ignoring empty lines which do not occur here because of DIR with option /B does not output empty lines.
FOR with option /F would ignore lines starting with a semicolon by default. For that reason end of line character is redefined with eol=| from ; to a vertical bar which file names can't contain. eol=| would not be required in this case because of file name pattern Romexis_dbYYYMMDDhhmm.zip making it unlikely that a file name starts with a semicolon.
FOR with option /F would split up the lines into substrings using space/tab as delimiter and would assign for each line only first space/tab delimited string to specified loop variable I. This line splitting behavior is disabled by specifying an empty list of delimiters with delims=. delims= would not be required in this case because of file name pattern Romexis_dbYYYMMDDhhmm.zip making it unlikely that a file name contains a space character.
The name of the file output first by DIR which is the newest ZIP file in specified directory is assigned to environment variable NewestFile. And next the FOR loop is exited with a jump to label DatabaseRestore as all other file names output by DIR are of no interest for this task.
The command lines below the FOR command line are executed only if there is no *.zip file in specified directory which report this unexpected error case.
It would be also possible to use the DIR command line below in batch file because of file name pattern Romexis_dbYYYMMDDhhmm.zip:
dir "%BackupFolder%\Romexis_db*.zip" /A-D-H /B /O-N 2^>nul
The same command line for execution from within a command prompt window:
dir "D:\Romexis_Bilder\romexis_SQL_Backup\*.zip" /A-D-H /B /O-N 2>nul
The order of the file names in output is here reverse by name which results in printing first the Romexis_db*.zip with newest date/time in file name thanks to date/time format YYYMMDDhhmm.
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.
cd /?
dir /?
echo /?
for /?
goto /?
pause /?
set /?
See also:
Where does GOTO :EOF return to?
Single line with multiple commands using Windows batch file
#Mofi
Thanks you for all your work it helped a lot!
As you advised I used each command in command prompt first to see the outputs (adapted batch %%I to cmd %I and vice versa)
I'm now able to find the newest file in D:\Romexis_Bilder\romexis_SQL_Backup the result is processed an taken as variable into the restore of the database which is done with One-Click SQL Restore https://sqlbackupandftp.com/restore
I did some modification in syntax of your commands O:D since „- „ excludes, removed attribute /TW because it was only listing backups from 2017.
#echo off
set "BackupFolder=D:\Romexis_Bilder\romexis_SQL_Backup"
for /F "eol=| delims=" %I in ('dir "%BackupFolder%\Romexis_db*.zip" /A-D-H /B /O:D 2^>nul') do set "NewestFile=%I" & goto DatabaseRestore
echo ERROR: Could not find any *.zip backup file in folder:
echo "%BackupFolder%"
echo/
pause
goto :EOF
:DatabaseRestore
cd /D "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Pranas.NET\SQLBackupAndFTP"
SqlRestore.exe "%BackupFolder%\%NewestFile%" -db Romexis_db -srv .\ROMEXIS -pwd password
echo/
pause
Maybe the ^ in 'dir "%BackupFolder%\Romexis_db*.zip" /A-D-H /B /O:D 2^>nul' is not correct in CMD but didn‘t seem affect the result.
It was really advance! Now the GUI of One-Click SQL Restore opens with the newest *zip . The only thing that I still need to get out, is the syntax in command prompt for the restore, now i still need to click on the restore button of the GUI. Or try it over Microsoft Visual Studio SQL or command line tool.
#MOFI no modifications are made to files from 2017 or other files at all, files are not overwritten or modified later, a new file is always created by the back up program 2 times a day with the naming romexis_dbYYYMMDDhhmm.ziptwo times a day. Will try /O-N
THANKS a lot fo you input

How to check if zip or rar file contains 1 or more files?

For the purposes of saving space and organizing, I'm zipping bunch of files in my local and networked folders. They are mainly CAD files, like stp, igs, etc.
There are already existing zip files and some are extracted by other users, but the zip file still exists on the folders, which eats up space.
Is there a command line zip, rar, 7z. etc. to find out if an archive file contains only 1 file?
I'd like to figure this out as I'll extract the archives with single files in to the current directory whilst extracting archives with 1+ files to \archivename\ folder. Otherwise one folder with 30 STP files, will suddenly have 30 folders and 30 files extracted in them which I don't want.
I currently use a batch file with WinRAR to extract and another program to check for duplicates, then WinRAR batch to re-zip them based on file extension. (Reason: people use different archive methods and there are duplicates of files all over.)
Sample batch files:
for /F "delims=," %%f in ('dir *.stp /B' ) do (%path% a -afzip -r- -m5 -ed -ep -or -tl -y -df "%%f".zip "%%f")
for /F "delims=;" %%f in ('dir *.7z /B /S' ) do (%path% x -OR -ilogC:\Users\XXXX\Desktop\myLog.txt "%%f" "%%~dpf"\"%%~nf"\)
Once I can check for number of files in a zip, I'll add a recursive function.
I can use NTFS compression, but I also want to organize the folders, some folder have 1000 files in them, I surely want to reduce that to 1. These are mainly for archiving purposes.
Any help or thought would be appreciated.
I suggest the following commented batch file for this task:
#echo off
setlocal EnableExtensions DisableDelayedExpansion
rem Extract all 7-Zip, RAR and ZIP archives in current directory into
rem subdirectories with name of archive file as name for subdirectory (-ad)
rem with running WinRAR for extraction in background (-ibck) which means
rem minimized to system tray with restoring also last access time (-tsa)
rem and creation time (-tsc) if existing in archive file and with skipping
rem files on extraction perhaps already present in the subdirectory with
rem same last modification time (-u), but overwriting automatically older
rem files in subdirectory if archive file contains an existing file with
rem a newer last modification time (-y) ignoring all errors (also -y).
for %%I in (7z rar zip) do "%ProgramFiles%\WinRAR\WinRAR.exe" x -ad -ibck -tsa -tsc -u -y *.%%I
rem If a subdirectory contains only 1 file, move that file to the current
rem directory with overwriting a perhaps already existing file with same
rem name in current directory and then remove the subdirectory.
for /D %%I in (*) do call :CheckSubDir "%%I"
rem Exit processing of the batch file without fall through to subroutine.
endlocal
goto :EOF
rem The subroutine CheckSubDir first checks for directories in directory
rem passed as parameter to the subroutine. A directory containing at
rem least one subdirectory is kept without any further processing.
rem If the directory does not contain a subdirectory, it searches for files
rem in the directory. If there are at least 2 files, the directory is kept
rem without any further processing.
rem But if the directory contains only 1 file, this file is moved to
rem current directory. Then the empty directory is deleted before exiting
rem the subroutine and continue batch file processing in calling loop.
rem Each directory containing no subdirectory and no file is removed, too.
:CheckSubDir
for /F "delims=" %%D in ('dir /AD /B "%~1\*" 2^>nul') do goto :EOF
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
set FileCount=0
for /F "delims=" %%F in ('dir /A-D /B "%~1\*" 2^>nul') do (
set /A FileCount+=1
if !FileCount! == 2 endlocal & goto :EOF
set "FileName=%%F"
)
if %FileCount% == 1 move /Y "%~1\%FileName%" "%FileName%"
rd "%~1"
endlocal
goto :EOF
Please read the comments for details what this batch file does on execution using WinRAR.
The batch file contains much more comment lines than real command lines.
2>nul in the last two FOR loops redirects the error message output by command DIR to handle STDERR in case of no directory or no file found to device NUL to suppress it. The redirection operator > must be escaped here with character caret ^ to be interpreted as redirection operator on execution of DIR command line and not already on parsing the FOR command line.
WinRAR supports many archive types on extraction. But WinRAR.exe is a GUI application and therefore does not support listing the contents of an archive file to console as Rar.exe supports.
The console version Rar.exe as well as free console application UnRAR.exe support both listing the archive file contents to handle STDOUT in various formats.
This difference on supported commands between WinRAR.exe and Rar.exe/UnRAR.exe can be seen by opening in WinRAR the help by clicking in menu Help on menu item Help topics, opening on help tab Contents the list item Command line mode, opening the list item Commands, clicking on list item Alphabetic commands list and comparing this list with the commands listed and described in text file Rar.txt in program files folder of WinRAR which is the manual for the console version.
Rar.txt lists and describes:
l[t[a],b] ... List archive contents [technical [all], bare]
v[t[a],b] ... Verbosely list archive contents [technical [all], bare].
Help of WinRAR does whether contain command l nor command v.
It would be of course also possible to run Rar.exe or UnRAR.exe on each *.rar file with command lb, count the number of lines output as done in above batch file to count the files and extract the *.rar archive file depending on the line count to current directory (1 line only) or to a subdirectory.
But it should be taken into account that on using bare list format and only 1 line output this line can be the name of an archived file or the name of an archived empty folder. The solution would be using standard list command and more analyze the attributes as well because a directory has attribute D while file does not have this attribute.
And for *.7z and *.zip files the same must be coded using 7z.exe or 7za.exe. The help of 7-Zip describes also the available commands and switches like the help of WinRAR.
But all those efforts do not make much sense in comparison to posted solution as the archive file has to be extracted at all and moving a file is done very fast as just the entry in file allocation table is modified and no data are copied or moved at all.
Running 7-Zip or Rar separately for first just listing each archive file contents, analyzing the list, and running 7-Zip or Rar once again on archive file for extraction is much slower than running WinRAR just 3 times (or less) to extract all archives and then move some files and remove some directories.
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 /?
for /?
goto /?
move /?
rd /?
set /?
setlocal /?
See also the Microsoft TechNet article Using command redirection operators.
Taking the question literal the following batch uses 7z.exe (has to be reachable via the Path) list (l)-option to get the number of files included in the archive by filtering the last line.
#Echo off
Set Base=q:\Test
Pushd "%Base%"
For /f "delims=" %%A in (
'Dir /B/S/A-D *.zip *.7z *.rar'
) Do For /f "tokens=5" %%B in (
' 7z.exe l "%%~A" ^| findstr "files$" '
) Do If %%B equ 1 (
Echo Archive %%A contains 1 file
) else (
Echo Archive %%A contains %%B files
)
Popd
Sample Output:
Archive q:\Test\archiv.7z contains 135 files
Archive q:\Test\PoSh\powershellitunes\PowerScript-itunes.7z contains 1 file
Archive q:\Test\PoSh\_pdf_itextsharp\extract_pdf_pages_into_new_323689.zip contains 3 files
Archive q:\Test\_StackOverflow\Noodles\Filter0.8.zip contains 4 files
Archive q:\Test\2016\12\16\Path.rar contains 7 files
Archive q:\Test\_AllHelp.Win\allhelp.zip contains 7 files
Archive q:\Test\2017-02\pkzipc_40.rar contains 10 files

Getting the attributes of the last modified file in a directory written in a file

I am in the need of a batch script that checks a drive (D:) for the 'last modified' attribute of *.czi files (Carl Zeiss image files) and append the data to a file on another drive. I have tried solutions with the following line:
FOR /F "delims=" %%I IN ('DIR %source%*.czi /A:-D /O:-D /T:W /B') DO COPY "%%I" > %target%
that does give me the last file, but it copies the entire file which is not that smart since they can be big. As a biologist I will spare you for my desperate attempts that did not work (spent 4-5 hours). I figure this can be done dead easily, that is if you know how... Any good suggestions? Any reply will be appreciated! Thanks in advance.
Let's assume just the last modified file time from newest file is wanted from all *.czi files in directory C:\Temp containing for example:
30.01.2017 08:13 First Listed.czi
28.01.2017 21:26 Oldest Image.czi
03.02.2017 17:13 Newest Image.czi
The batch code for this task could be:
#echo off
set "Source=C:\Temp\"
set "Target=%Source%List.txt"
for /F "delims=" %%I in ('dir "%Source%*.czi" /A:-D /B /O:-D /T:W 2^>nul') do (
echo File "%%I" last modified on %%~tI>>"%Target%"
goto AfterLoop
)
:AfterLoop
The command DIR searches in for *.czi files in directory C:\Temp and outputs the list sorted by last modification time in reverse order from newest to oldest.
In case of no *.czi file could be found, command DIR would output an error message to handle STDERR. This output message is redirected with 2>nul to device NUL to suppress it whereby the redirection operator > must be escaped here with ^ to be interpreted as redirection operator on execution of DIR command line and not already on parsing FOR command line.
%%I references the name of the file as output by DIR and %%~tI references the last modification date of the file. The help of command FOR output by running in a command prompt window for /? explains those modifiers.
The loop is exited after first output of the text redirected to the target file on which the line is appended if it is already existing because of using >> instead of just >.
For the example files list the following line is appended to C:\Temp\List.txt:
File "Newest Image.czi" last modified on 03.02.2017 17:13
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.
dir /?
echo /?
for /?
goto /?
set /?
See also the Microsoft article Using command redirection operators.
Your question is unclear, so let me try to rephrase it:
I think you want to find the Most Recently Modified file with a .CZI extension, and copy only that newest file to some target destination.
To list all .CZI files in all subdirectories, sorted by newest-file first:
(for /f %a in ('dir *.CZI /s /b') do #echo %~ta %~fa) | sort
If the first line of this output is the file that you want, then all you need to do is copy that one file to your target.
(and please, take the time to write detailed and clear questions so we can provide good answers)

How to create empty files in a loop with batch?

I am having a problem on running a script to create empty files in a loop.
This is what have done so far:
#echo off
for /l %%a (1;1;20) do (echo m> ".mp4" c:\test)
pause
exit
Basically I have twenty names in a file on my desktop and I intend to create them as empty *.mp4 files in folder c:\test with the command echo m> .mp4. When I run the code above, it does not seem to work.
The following FOR loop can be used in the batch file to create empty files 1.mp4, 2.mp4, 3.mp4, ..., 20.mp4 in directory C:\test as suggested by rojo:
for /L %%I in (1,1,20) do type NUL >"C:\test\%%I.mp4"
And the next FOR loop can be used in the batch file to read the file names for the empty *.mp4 files to create from a list file on Windows desktop of current user as also suggested by rojo:
for /F "usebackq delims=" %%I in ("%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\List of Names.txt") do type NUL >"C:\test\%%I.mp4"
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 /?
type /?
Further the Microsoft article Using command redirection operators should be read explaining the redirection operator > and the SS64 page about NUL (null device).

get filename in the batch file each time a new file is placed

My requirement is - i need to read the filename from an input folder say - C:\Encrypt\In and pass it to the command java.exe -jar D:\SYS\src\PI\IN\Cryptage.jar -rc4 -crypt D:\SYS\src\PI\IN\Decrypt\ D:\src\PI\IN\Encrypt\ %VAR1%%VAR2%
i tried doing the one below - but no luck
set VAR1=FOR /R C:\Encrypt\In %F in (*.*) do echo %~nF
set VAR2=ABCD
echo %VAR1%%VAR2% (concatenate the filename with "ABCD" as constant)
java.exe -jar D:\SYS\src\PI\IN\Cryptage.jar -rc4 -crypt D:\SYS\src\PI\IN\Decrypt\ D:\src\PI\IN\Encrypt\ %VAR1%%VAR2%
(pass it here - so that each time a file comes in the input directory the variables can pick up the file names dynamically through the variables)
echo %VAR1%%VAR2% is not working.
Thanks anyway - i achieved it through this :- cd C:\Encrypt\In\ for %%f in (.) do ( rem echo %%~nfAPSI set v=%%~nfAPSI ) echo %v%
Here is a commented batch code for your task:
#echo off
set "ScanFolder=C:\Encrypt\In"
rem The loop runs command DIR to get a list of files with archive attribute set.
rem Directories are ignored even if archive attribute is set on a directory.
rem On each file with archive attribute currently set the archive attribute
rem is removed from file and then the command is started to process the file.
rem After all files with archive attribute were processed, the batch file
rem waits 5 seconds before scanning the folder again. The loop is infinite
rem and can be breaked only by pressing Ctrl+C or closing command prompt
rem window to stop command line interpreter.
:Loop
for /F "delims=" %%F in ('dir /AA-D /B "%ScanFolder%" 2^>nul') do (
%SystemRoot%\System32\attrib.exe -A "%ScanFolder%\%%~nxF"
java.exe -jar D:\SYS\src\PI\IN\Cryptage.jar -rc4 -crypt D:\SYS\src\PI\IN\Decrypt\ D:\src\PI\IN\Encrypt\ "%ScanFolder%\%%~nxF"
)
%SystemRoot%\System32\ping.exe -n 6 127.0.0.1>nul
goto Loop
java.exe should be called with full path enclosed in double quotes if possible as in this case command line interpreter would not always need to search for it in the folders of environment variable PATH.
Note: The batch file calls the new file with full path, file name and extension without anything appended. Of course you can replace %%~nxF at end of line calling java.exe also with %%~nFABCD if this is necessary in your environment.
For an explanation of the used commands and how they work in detail open a command prompt window and execute following commands to see the help of those commands:
attrib /?
dir /?
for /?
ping /?

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