I am running a batch file and I have one forfiles command in it
FORFILES -p%spinputarchrootpath% -m*.csv -d-365 -c"CMD /C DEL #FILE"
%spinputarchrootpath% variable maps to a folder location (Y:\Temp Documents\testfolder).
Now the above command is throwing an error because of the space in the folder name (Temp Documents).
How to handle this space? I have tried putting quotes around %spinputarchrootpath% variable but it is not working.
I'd the same problem and found the solution.
I think your folder-variable of the folder you wish to empty has a backslash at the end.
This will NOT work:
echo J|forfiles /P "C:\temp files\" /S /M * /D -7 /C "cmd /c del /F /S /Q #path"
... but this works (without backslash)
echo J|forfiles /P "C:\temp files" /S /M * /D -7 /C "cmd /c del /F /S /Q #path"
Regards
Tino
Enclose the path in quotes:
FORFILES -p "%spinputarchrootpath%" -m *.csv -d -365 -c "CMD /C DEL #FILE"
Note, there's a space between -p and "%spinputarchrootpath%". Without a space in this case it won't work.
As a work around first change directories to the folder you want, and then execute forfiles without the /p parameter.
CD %spinputarchrootpath%
FORFILES -m*.csv -d-365 -c"CMD /C DEL #FILE"
Check post:
How to Tell FORFILES to Execute Command on Path?
The problem lies in the part:
-c"CMD /C DEL #FILE"
Use:
-c"CMD /C DEL ^0x22#FILE^0x22"
to put extra double quotes around the file
Related
I am trying to run a script to clear out the recycle bin on a QNAP NAS periodically.
The problem is the path for the recycle bin on the NAS includes an [at] sign:
"\nas01\SQLBackup\#Recycle" (Had to use double slash here to get it to display correctly)
Can someone please point me in the right direction as to what I'm doing wrong?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Batch File Code
#ECHO ON
NET USE X: "\\nas01\SQLBackup\#Recycle"
forfiles /p "X:\" /s /m * /c "cmd /c del #path"
NET USE X: /delete
PAUSE
Output
C:\Windows\system32>NET USE X: "\\nas01\SQLBackup\#Recycle"
The command completed successfully.
C:\Windows\system32>forfiles /p "X:\" /s /m * /c "cmd /c del #path"
ERROR: Invalid argument/option - '#path'.
Type "FORFILES /?" for usage.
C:\Windows\system32>NET USE X: /delete
X: was deleted successfully.
C:\Windows\system32>PAUSE
Press any key to continue . . .
The reason you get the error is due to the double quotes around the path, where backslash is present. The backslash escapes the last double quote. You should either use:
forfiles /p "X:" /s /m * /c "cmd /c del #path"
or
forfiles /p X:\ /s /m * /c "cmd /c del #path"
anyway, I would not use forfiles at all here. You can quite simply use del /s:
net use X: "\\nas01\SQLBackup\#Recycle"
pushd "x:\">nul 2>&1 && del /Q /S *.* || echo X:\ Not available.
popd
net use X: /delete
pause
Quite simply, we attempt pushd to x:\ if not available, it will fail with a message, if available it will del /s everything on X:\ where /s is basically recursive search throughout the root of X:\ in this instance.
The #-symbol in your path does not cause the error. It is the backslash in:
forfiles /p "X:\" /s /m * /c "cmd /c del #path"
that unintentionally escapes the closing quote (this is specific to forfiles!). To avoid that, simply append a . to the path, like:
forfiles /p "X:\." /s /m * /c "cmd /c del #path"
The . means current directory, so in a path it does not change anything, hence X:\ equals X:\., and D:\some\.\path equals D:\some\path. Of course, you could just remove the quotes around X:\ in your particular situation, but appending . is a general solution that even works with a relative path like X: (meaning the current directory of drive X:), and removal of quotes introduces problems with paths containing SPACEs.
By the way, are you aware that forfiles returns both files and directories, and that del is there to delete just files, and there is rd to delete directories?
So to ensure to handle only files, use this:
forfiles /S /P "X:\." /M * /C "cmd /C if #isdir==FALSE del #path"
And to ensure to handle only directories, use this:
forfiles /S /P "X:\." /M * /C "cmd /C if #isdir==TRUE rd /S /Q #path"
Of course you can handle both, if you want:
forfiles /S /P "X:\." /M * /C "cmd /C if #isdir==TRUE (rd /S /Q #path) else (del #path)"
When you use PushD, it will create a temporary drive map, (allocated in available reverse alphabetical order, Z:..A:), and will then use that new drive. For that reason you should be able to do this without using net.exe.
Example:
#PushD "\\nas01\SQLBackup\#Recycle" 2> NUL && (RD /S /Q . 2> NUL & PopD)
This example uses RD to Remove the Directory instead of your used Del command. When the target directory is the current working directory, it cannot be removed, (returning an error message), however its contents will be. The code above redirects the error message to the NUL device, so that it is not output.
I'm working with an application that creates a generic file type extension for data log information. I'm trying to create a batch file script that would delete data log files that are 5 days or older. I don't have the most Batch File experience, but I have found the following script below works correctly for many file types, except for the generic .File type extension.
forfiles /p "C:\SOAP_Data" /s /m *.* /d -5 /c "cmd /c del #path" &
forfiles /p "C:\HL7_Data" /s /m *.* /d -5 /c "cmd /c del #path"
Is there some tweak I can do to the script to make it include the deletion of the .File extension files as well? I've tried to add *.file to the folder path, but that didn't seem to work.
Through troubleshooting using the ECHO of the delete path, I was able to find the following solution:
forfiles /p "C:\SOAP_Data" /d -5 /c "cmd /c DEL #path" &
forfiles /p "C:\HL7_Data" /d -5 /c "cmd /c DEL #path"
I'm looking for a way to delete all files in a directory that are older than x days and that are not of certain extension, I found this command line for the first:
forfiles -p "C:\Test" -s -m *.* /D -5 /C "cmd /c del #path"
and this for the second:
for /f %%F in ('dir /b /a-d ^| findstr /vile ".bat"') do del "%%F"
but could not do them in one command line, and for the second it ignores files containing spaces in their names.
Note that I am doing this in batch files (DeleteOldFiles.bat).
Thanks to everyone in advance.
The FORFILES command does have an option to see what the file extension is. So all you have to do is use that variable to compare it with the extension you are trying to exclude.
forfiles -p "C:\Test" -s -m *.* /D -5 /C "cmd /c if /I not #ext==0x22bat0x22 del #path"
The 0x22 is the hex representation of the double quote. Forfiles variables are always quoted.
When using a for loop with /f certain special characters are default delimeters. One of those being a space, so a name with a space will be split by space. So we need to ad "delims=" to override default delims.
I however suspect that you want to run both deletion of old files and excluding certain bat extensions purely because you batch file might be in the sam directory as the files you want to delete. You can overcome this simply by placing the file elsewhere and specifying path to the directory where files needs deleting. If so then simply add this to the batch file and place the file in a seperate dir:
forfiles -p "C:\Test" -s -m *.* /D -5 /C "cmd /c del #path"
If you want to delete all other files from a dir which containsa batch files and seperately delete files older than N date in another then these will do.
Batch file version:
#echo off
forfiles -p "C:\Test" -s -m *.* /D -5 /C "cmd /c del #path"
for /f "delims=" %%F in ('dir /b /a-d ^| findstr /vile ".bat"') do echo del "%%F"
pause
Cmdline version:
forfiles -p "C:\Test" -s -m *.* /D -5 /C "cmd /c del #path" & for /f "delims=" %%F in ('dir /b /a-d ^| findstr /vile ".bat"') do echo del "%%F"
Be careful though where you place the batch file as there is no specific path in the command for the for loop. For that very reason, I placed echo before del once you are sure that your query echo's the result you expect, you can remove the echo to perform the actual task.
i have a question. I need to delete all files in subfolders but not the sub folder or the main folder older than 1 day.
#echo off
forfiles -p "C:\Users\remote\Downloads" -s -m *.* /D -1 -c "cmd /c del #path"
i have this code which delete all files older than 1 day in downloads but what i need /seek is:
C:\users\remote\downloads\%variable%
and that only the files whitin variable will be deleted. i have many "variables".
it is for my work and as a test i do it local.
FOR /D will allow you to iterate over subdirectories. How about
FOR /D %d IN (C:\Users\remote\Downloads\*) DO ( forfiles /P "%~d" /D -1 /C "cmd /c del #path" )
You'll need to "escape" the percent sign in the iteration variable if you put this command in a script:
FOR /D %%d IN (C:\Users\remote\Downloads\*) DO (
FORFILES /P "%%~d" /D -1 /C "cmd /c del #path"
)
i would like to know how you can delete multiple files in different folders with batch commands.
I have the following code, this code works fine for 1 map but i need to do it for multiple maps :
forfiles /p "D:\CHILI_Publisher\Data\Environments\Adecco\Cache_Data\Assets" /s /d -10 /c "cmd /c echo #file"
PAUSE
This is the code for the various maps and various file types with wildcards (this one gives an error : The directory name is invalid:
forfiles /p "D:\CHILI_Publisher\Data\Environments\*.*\Cache_Data\*.*" /s /d -10 /c "cmd /c echo #file"
PAUSE
Tl;DR : I have an error and would like to know how to use a wildcard correctly in batch files.
You can wrap FORFILES in a FOR loop:
for /d %D in (c:\temp\a*;c:\temp\b*;c:\temp\c*) do forfiles /p %D /s /c "cmd /c echo #file" /d -10
If you need to find all folders named CACHE_DATA under a super folder you can navigate to the super folder (cd D:\CHILI_Publisher\Data\Environments) and run this:
for /f %F in ('dir /B /S /AD cache_data') do for /d %D in (%F) do forfiles /p %D /s /c "cmd /c echo #file" /d -10
If you put the script in a BATCH file remember to escape % with %%.