For Loop Question

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ALbino
Posts: 29
Joined: 23 Oct 2014 19:27

For Loop Question

#1 Post by ALbino » 04 Dec 2014 20:05

Hey guys,

I have a little loop where I search for all .txt files and pull a number from them before doing a calculation on it and renaming the file.

The original filenames look like:

Filename~0001.txt

I am then pulling 0001, performing a calculation and renaming them to:

Filename-0001__0_mins_1_secs.txt

This works perfectly fine, but the annoyance I'm running into is that in a folder that already contains renamed files it still tries to process them even though there is no ~ in them. Here's a snippet of my code:

Code: Select all

for /F "tokens=1,2 delims=~" %%G in ('dir /b *.txt') do (

   set FilenameWithoutNumber=%%G

   set NumberWithExtension=%%H

   rem Right here is a bunch of calculations which I have removed

   ren !FilenameWithoutNumber!~!NumberWithExtension! !FilenameWithoutNumber!-!FileSpecificNumber!__!TotalTime!.txt

   echo Renamed !FilenameWithoutNumber!~!NumberWithExtension! to !FilenameWithoutNumber!-!FileSpecificNumber!__!TotalTime!.txt
)



Which correctly renames the files that have ~0001 but gives an error on the ones that have already been renamed to -0001__0_mins_1_secs.txt.

Here's the output:

Code: Select all

Missing operator.
The syntax of the command is incorrect.
Renamed Filename-0001__1_mins_0_secs.txt~ to Filename-0001__1_mins_0_secs.txt-~0,4__208_mins_20_secs
.txt


This isn't a huge deal as the previously renamed files aren't actually affected (since the rename filename input ends up being wrong), but it would be better if they were just ignored all together. Without doing anything complicated, is there some simple way I'm missing that I can modify my For Loop to skip processing the ones that don't contains a ~? Thanks in advance!
Last edited by ALbino on 04 Dec 2014 21:23, edited 1 time in total.

Squashman
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Joined: 23 Dec 2011 13:59

Re: For Loop Question

#2 Post by Squashman » 04 Dec 2014 20:41

change your file mask.
Dir /b *~*.txt

ALbino
Posts: 29
Joined: 23 Oct 2014 19:27

Re: For Loop Question

#3 Post by ALbino » 04 Dec 2014 21:09

Squashman wrote:change your file mask.
Dir /b *~*.txt


That's the first thing I tried, but it didn't work. Here's is my line:

Code: Select all

for /F "tokens=1,2 delims=~" %%G in ('dir /b *~*.txt') do (


Here's the output from a directory with one renamed file and one that has yet to be renamed...

Input files:
Filename~0001.txt
Filename-0002__0_mins_2_secs.txt

Result:

Code: Select all

Renamed Filename~0001.txt to Filename-0001__0_mins_1_secs.txt
Missing operator.
The syntax of the command is incorrect.
Renamed Filename-0002__0_mins_2_secs.txt~ to Filename-0002__0_mins_2_secs.txt-~0
,4__208_mins_20_secs.txt


Am I missing something?

ALbino
Posts: 29
Joined: 23 Oct 2014 19:27

Re: For Loop Question

#4 Post by ALbino » 04 Dec 2014 21:23

I think maybe the tilde (~) is the problem. Just opening a command prompt and using any other character seems to work, but when I use *~* this is what happens:

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C:\test\textfiles>dir /b *~*.txt
Filename~0001.txt
Filename-0002__0_mins_2_secs.txt


But if I just search for *_* or *-* or *2* it's fine:

Code: Select all

C:\test\textfiles>dir /b *_*.txt
Filename-0002__0_mins_2_secs.txt


Is ~ an illegal character of some sort in this instance?

ALbino
Posts: 29
Joined: 23 Oct 2014 19:27

Re: For Loop Question

#5 Post by ALbino » 04 Dec 2014 22:34

Just an update: I've switched from using ~'s to using +'s and dir /b *+*.txt works fine, so I'm going to go with that. Though I'm still not sure why ~'s don't work.

Squashman
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Posts: 4465
Joined: 23 Dec 2011 13:59

Re: For Loop Question

#6 Post by Squashman » 05 Dec 2014 07:46

Yes. I forgot the tilde is used with short file names. You should really look at picking a different character to name the initial file names.
Do this at the cmd prompt and you will see why the tilde is a bad idea.

Code: Select all

dir /a-d /x

Yury
Posts: 115
Joined: 28 Dec 2013 07:54

Re: For Loop Question

#7 Post by Yury » 05 Dec 2014 09:38

*
Last edited by Yury on 07 Dec 2014 20:17, edited 1 time in total.

Squashman
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Posts: 4465
Joined: 23 Dec 2011 13:59

Re: For Loop Question

#8 Post by Squashman » 05 Dec 2014 10:11

Cool. What other modifiers did they add to Windows 8 and above?
I have always wanted them to change the DIR /Q option to a modifier.

dbenham
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Joined: 12 Feb 2011 21:02
Location: United States (east coast)

Re: For Loop Question

#9 Post by dbenham » 05 Dec 2014 11:30

Yes, the short file names can wreak havoc on the unwary :twisted:

You can fix your code fairly easily and still preserve the ~. You just need to modify your FOR /F to use FINDSTR to filter out the unwanted files:

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for /F "tokens=1,2 delims=~" %%G in ('dir /b *.txt^|findstr /xi "[^~]*~[0-9][0-9]*\.txt"') do ...


This is a good application for my JREN.BAT - the full solution is a one liner :!: :D

Code: Select all

@echo off
call jren "^(.*?)~(\d+)(\.txt)$" "$1+'-'+$2+'__'+Math.floor($2/60)+'_mins_'+($2%%60)+'_secs'+$3" /j


Dave Benham

Squashman
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Posts: 4465
Joined: 23 Dec 2011 13:59

Re: For Loop Question

#10 Post by Squashman » 05 Dec 2014 13:33

Dave, I knew you would have the solution. I remember you helping me with a short file name problem a few months back. Wasn't quite the same issue but we did pipe it to findstr to resolve the problem.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5802

ALbino
Posts: 29
Joined: 23 Oct 2014 19:27

Re: For Loop Question

#11 Post by ALbino » 05 Dec 2014 16:35

Ah, short filenames. That makes sense. Thanks for the feedback and the help guys. Much appreciated!

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