DOS question
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I have to rename in some folders many file. The file are named like:
L1.txt
L2.txt
...
L9.txt
L10.txt
...
L99.txt
L100.txt
...Now, to apply some code, I need that the names changes to
L001.txt
...
L009.txt
L010.txt
...
L099.txt
L100.txtI was thinking to use the old DOS. I was hoping to use a couple of command to solve the problem. Something like
rename L?.txt L00?.txt
rename L??.txt L0??.txtbut it looks to not work as desired. I think it understands the 'input' names, but wrong to interpret the second string of the command. any expert on the 'old' DOS? :)
Russell
Whenever I have to do bulk renaming I always include DOS in the mix... First I place all the files in c:\work folder entering the following in DOS C: CD C:\WORK DIR /B > FILES.TXT yields a simple text file with all file names listed one per line. then make a second copy of the TXT file COPY FILES.TXT FILES1.TXT FILES.TXT becomes the rename "Command" portion and FILES1.TXT becomes the "New Names" portion of the exercise. Many times the file names I am converting contain spaces so that means the RENAME command requires the name be encased in quotes. so using a text editor (I use JSoft's EditPadPro) I do a search and replace of carriage returns... FIND [CR] and REPLACE WITH: " RENAME " This puts a quote at the end of each line and the rename command-space-quote at the beginning of each line (with manual tweaking of the first and last lines). Save FILES.TXT Open FILES1.TXT in the text editor and with some thoughtful and creative "String Search and Replace" convert this list into the required filenames. Using the Block Mode Selection feature, copy this column of file names. Open FILES.TXT and paste this block into the far right field of the first row (making sure the block does not crash into the existing text.) Save FILES.TXT I then open FILES.TXT in CuteHTML because it has a "Code Optimizer" feature that allows me to remove all extra spaces from the file. Save the FILES.TXT as FILES.BAT Back in DOS run FILES and WOOSH!... easy-peasy. The whole process usually goes pretty quickly and is the best way I have found to deal with insanely punctuated filenames. I know this is nowhere near as elegant as you where hoping for but that is what I would be doing. change L to L00, change L001 to L1 to get the hundreds and manually fix L1.txt to L001.txt and on like that. more power to you!
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For files with numbers less than 10: FOR /L %F in (1,1,9) DO REN L%F.txt L00%F.txt For files with numbers from 10 to 99: FOR /L %F IN (10,1,99) DO REN L%F.txt L0%F.txt You could expand this out with a check to make sure the file exists: FOR /L %F IN (1,1,9 DO IF EXIST L%F.txt REN L%F.txt L00%F.txt
that was what I was looking for! thank you -------------------------------------------------------------------- If someone in future will have the same problem I also report here a more complex script I prepared before reading this reply that does the same thing (I hope :~). Because for me it is trivial to not change absolutely the name of the files, then the script is very robust on this feature (and it display a sort of report to check all the progress) Thanks again to all
@echo off
@echo File 001 to 009
set /a cnt1=1
:DATA0109
IF NOT EXIST L%cnt1%.sg2 @echo L%cnt1%.sg2 not found
IF EXIST L%cnt1%.sg2 @echo rename L%cnt1%.sg2 L00%cnt1%.sg2
IF EXIST L%cnt1%.sg2 rename L%cnt1%.sg2 L00%cnt1%.sg2
set /a cnt1+=1
if %cnt1%==10 goto :DATA1099BEGIN
goto :DATA0109:DATA1099BEGIN
@echo File 010 to 099
set /a cnt1=0
set /a cnt2=1
:DATA1099
IF NOT EXIST L%cnt2%%cnt1%.sg2 @echo L%cnt2%%cnt1%.sg2 not found
IF EXIST L%cnt2%%cnt1%.sg2 @echo rename L%cnt2%%cnt1%.sg2 L0%cnt2%%cnt1%.sg2
IF EXIST L%cnt2%%cnt1%.sg2 rename L%cnt2%%cnt1%.sg2 L0%cnt2%%cnt1%.sg2
set /a cnt1+=1
if %cnt1%==10 set /a cnt2+=1
if %cnt1%==10 set /a cnt1=0
if %cnt2%==10 goto :EXIT
goto :DATA1099:EXIT
pause
goto :EOF
Russell
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For files with numbers less than 10: FOR /L %F in (1,1,9) DO REN L%F.txt L00%F.txt For files with numbers from 10 to 99: FOR /L %F IN (10,1,99) DO REN L%F.txt L0%F.txt You could expand this out with a check to make sure the file exists: FOR /L %F IN (1,1,9 DO IF EXIST L%F.txt REN L%F.txt L00%F.txt
Gotta LOVE that FOR-IN-DO!! L_O_
VE This Suggestion! -
+1 for BRU! It works great. :)
There are some really weird people on this planet - MIM.
BRU has been solid and great for years. You have to upgrade to use it across a network, though.
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I think the best way to do this is to use a batch file and the FOR command. Take a look at this[^] for some ideas.
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
using the old %%n will work for %%n in (\\directory\filename*.txt)
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Aww, you hurt my feelings. I was just starting to feel special. :) Just kidding - that Total Commander thing does look pretty nice.
No offense. I remember when I had to edit huge (for the early 90s) 3MB text files and I used WordPerfect Editor because of all the macro functions. I occasionally wrote little macros for tasks like this to create a batch file. This is about the level of using Excel. It works in a pinch, but... Later I was introduced to both Norton Commander and Sage Professional Editor, and things got even better. SPE was a dream, as it could edit multiple docs at the same time and its macro language used AWK. The consultant who introduced it to us had some nifty tricks to automatically open those text files and jump to the line in the error log. Needless to say I quickly abandoned WP Editor. Then Win95 came out, Norton made one last version of Commander for that platform, SPE changed from a DOS based to a Win95 editor renamed Preditor, and life was looking good. Then Norton Commander was gone, and Preditor was bundled into some insanely overpriced corporate enterprise suite and lost to me forever. I despaired. Eventually I found my first NC clone called Volkov Commander, and it was a decent but slightly buggy thing. Never did find a text editor with an AWK-like macro language. And maybe ten years ago I discovered Windows Commander, subsequently renamed to Total Commander when Microsoft threatened them. It was a superb NC clone, no bugs. And in the years since, he has added features that just make it better and better. Some of them I never used for the longest time, but as I found a need for them I realized just how powerful they are. That file rename feature is one of the incredible ones when you need it. I realize that in Linux this is all done with too clever by half scripts at the command line, but that has never really appealed to me. I like a good GUI. Total Commander makes that stuff easy.
Narf.
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I have to rename in some folders many file. The file are named like:
L1.txt
L2.txt
...
L9.txt
L10.txt
...
L99.txt
L100.txt
...Now, to apply some code, I need that the names changes to
L001.txt
...
L009.txt
L010.txt
...
L099.txt
L100.txtI was thinking to use the old DOS. I was hoping to use a couple of command to solve the problem. Something like
rename L?.txt L00?.txt
rename L??.txt L0??.txtbut it looks to not work as desired. I think it understands the 'input' names, but wrong to interpret the second string of the command. any expert on the 'old' DOS? :)
Russell
Write a program in your favorite language on any platform to generate a throw away batch file. Don't waste too much time messing with all of the DOS quirks. DONT FORGET TO LEAVE ROOM FOR EXPANSION! 110 files today is 100,000 files tomorrow! example in C int i; for (i = 1; i <= 100; ++i) printf("ren L%d.txt L%5.5d.txt\r\n"); capture the output via: a.exe > myrename.bat myrename.bat
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I have to rename in some folders many file. The file are named like:
L1.txt
L2.txt
...
L9.txt
L10.txt
...
L99.txt
L100.txt
...Now, to apply some code, I need that the names changes to
L001.txt
...
L009.txt
L010.txt
...
L099.txt
L100.txtI was thinking to use the old DOS. I was hoping to use a couple of command to solve the problem. Something like
rename L?.txt L00?.txt
rename L??.txt L0??.txtbut it looks to not work as desired. I think it understands the 'input' names, but wrong to interpret the second string of the command. any expert on the 'old' DOS? :)
Russell
BetterFileRename: http://www.publicspace.net/windows/BetterFileRename/index.html[^]
NoelPV2
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I have to rename in some folders many file. The file are named like:
L1.txt
L2.txt
...
L9.txt
L10.txt
...
L99.txt
L100.txt
...Now, to apply some code, I need that the names changes to
L001.txt
...
L009.txt
L010.txt
...
L099.txt
L100.txtI was thinking to use the old DOS. I was hoping to use a couple of command to solve the problem. Something like
rename L?.txt L00?.txt
rename L??.txt L0??.txtbut it looks to not work as desired. I think it understands the 'input' names, but wrong to interpret the second string of the command. any expert on the 'old' DOS? :)
Russell
FYI, I would do it like this (from the command prompt, not from a batch file): for %f in (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) do rename L%f.txt L00%f.txt for %f in (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) do for %g in (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) do rename L%f%g.txt L0%f%g.txt that would work to rename the 1-99 files. The 100 file is already in that format. Sincerely G
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Use the following script. It does the following: For each *.txt file in the current directory... 1. remove the first character, assuming it is an L 2. add 00 to the front 3. extracts the last 7 characters XXX.txt, where XXX is the original number padded with zeros 4. adds the L back to the front 5. does the rename
@echo off
setlocal ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
for /f "delims=" %%a in ('dir /b *.txt') do (
(set i=%%a)
(set i=00!i:~1,100!)
(set i=L!i:~-7!)
echo rename "%%a" to "!i!"
rename "%%a" "!i!"
)
endlocal- okay, now that's the first time I saw the !! being used. I'm not sure in what version that was introduced. 2) I tried it and it only works in a batch file, not from the command prompt, but that's a minor setback, still amazing. 3) I would do it with a slight twist:
echo:@echo off>myrename.bat echo:setlocal ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION>>myrename.bat echo:for /L %%f in (1,1,100) do (>>myrename.bat echo:(set i=00%%f)>>myrename.bat echo:(set i=!i:~-3!)>>myrename.bat echo:rename L%%f.txt L!i!.txt>>myrename.bat echo:)>>myrename.bat echo:endlocal>>myrename.batThanks for the !i! thing...! Sincerely, G
- okay, now that's the first time I saw the !! being used. I'm not sure in what version that was introduced. 2) I tried it and it only works in a batch file, not from the command prompt, but that's a minor setback, still amazing. 3) I would do it with a slight twist:
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FYI, I would do it like this (from the command prompt, not from a batch file): for %f in (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) do rename L%f.txt L00%f.txt for %f in (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) do for %g in (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) do rename L%f%g.txt L0%f%g.txt that would work to rename the 1-99 files. The 100 file is already in that format. Sincerely G
yes, prompt is better then bat. Thats why I was hoping to use something like that rename L?.txt L00?.txt rename L??.txt L0??.txt that was quite understandable and not so difficult to be implemented into the DOS implementation of the command copy, rename, ... :sigh:
Russell
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Write a program in your favorite language on any platform to generate a throw away batch file. Don't waste too much time messing with all of the DOS quirks. DONT FORGET TO LEAVE ROOM FOR EXPANSION! 110 files today is 100,000 files tomorrow! example in C int i; for (i = 1; i <= 100; ++i) printf("ren L%d.txt L%5.5d.txt\r\n"); capture the output via: a.exe > myrename.bat myrename.bat
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FYI, I would do it like this (from the command prompt, not from a batch file): for %f in (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) do rename L%f.txt L00%f.txt for %f in (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) do for %g in (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) do rename L%f%g.txt L0%f%g.txt that would work to rename the 1-99 files. The 100 file is already in that format. Sincerely G
The code
NuLiFree wrote:
for %f in (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) do rename L%f.txt L00%f.txt for %f in (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) do for %g in (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) do rename L%f%g.txt L0%f%g.txt
does not cater for missing entries. You could add
2>nulto the end of the renames to hide the errors, but the following (untested) would be safer and (in the second set) faster if some cases are not required:for %f in (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) do if exist L%f.txt rename L%f.txt L00%f.txt
for %f in (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) do if exist L%f?.txt for %g in (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) do if exist L%f%g.txt rename L%f%g.txt L0%f%g.txtYou might want to change the two occurrences of
(1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9)to(0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9)to catch some erroneously named files. -
I've used this before and I totally agree.