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DOS question

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  • H Henry Minute

    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.”

    E Offline
    E Offline
    edmurphy99
    wrote on last edited by
    #34

    using the old %%n will work for %%n in (\\directory\filename*.txt)

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    • L Lost User

      Aww, you hurt my feelings. I was just starting to feel special. :) Just kidding - that Total Commander thing does look pretty nice.

      N Offline
      N Offline
      Naruki 0
      wrote on last edited by
      #35

      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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      • R Russell

        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.txt

        I 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??.txt

        but 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

        E Offline
        E Offline
        englebart
        wrote on last edited by
        #36

        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

        R 1 Reply Last reply
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        • R Russell

          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.txt

          I 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??.txt

          but 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

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          N Offline
          Noel Paricollo 2
          wrote on last edited by
          #37

          BetterFileRename: http://www.publicspace.net/windows/BetterFileRename/index.html[^]

          NoelPV2

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          0
          • R Russell

            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.txt

            I 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??.txt

            but 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

            D Offline
            D Offline
            da808wiz
            wrote on last edited by
            #38

            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

            R J 2 Replies Last reply
            0
            • D dchuks

              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

              D Offline
              D Offline
              da808wiz
              wrote on last edited by
              #39
              1. 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.bat Thanks for the !i! thing...! Sincerely, G
              1 Reply Last reply
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              • D da808wiz

                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

                R Offline
                R Offline
                Russell
                wrote on last edited by
                #40

                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

                1 Reply Last reply
                0
                • E englebart

                  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

                  R Offline
                  R Offline
                  Russell
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #41

                  :laugh: yes...nice tip


                  Russell

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                  • D da808wiz

                    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

                    J Offline
                    J Offline
                    jsc42
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #42

                    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>nul to 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.txt

                    You 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.

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                    • B Bassam Abdul Baki

                      Best tool ever.[^]

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                      B Offline
                      blue lizard
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #43

                      I've used this before and I totally agree.

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