how generate & use list of values within a commend? - windows

I would like to use a windows command that is processing many files.
The syntax of the command is as follows & requires a separated list of filenames: command "file_1 file_2 file_3 file_4" output-file
I have to handle 1000s of files.
Is there any way generate the list of files automatically in the command line?
Something like:
command "(echo file_1.txt to file_1000.txt)" output-file
Thanks a lot!

If your question is "how do I create a list of files numbered 1 to 1000," then you can do this in PowerShell:
1..1000 | % { New-Item file_$_.txt }
Note that % is an alias for ForEach-Object. The $_ token means "current object from the pipeline" (i.e., the number 1-1000).

This question has many open-ended issues. It is unlikely that all files can be processed by a single command since cmd has a line length limit. However, you can process them one at a time. It is unclear what the output-file would contain.
FOR %A IN ("file_*") DO (command "%A")
If this is in a .bat file script, double the PERCENT character on the variable name.
FOR %%A IN ("file_*") DO (command "%%~A")

Related

Copying files with specific extension from a list (text file) of directories

I have a text file with list of certain directories that I want to copy *.xlsx files from them to another directory.
This is how the the text file (list.txt) is arranged:
PT_NAK01, PT_NAK04, PT_NAK05, PT_JAR03
What I have so far:
#echo off
set main_folder="\\internal.company.com\project folder\"
set my_folder="C:\_M__\files"
for /f "tokens=*" %%i in (list.txt) DO (
xcopy "%main_folder%\%%i" "%my_folder%"
)
So the folders that I want to look into would be \\internal.company.com\project folder\PT_NAK01 etc.
What I don't know is how to pass the specific extension *.xlsx to this command.
Note: I haven't used /S switch with xcopy deliberately because I do not want the files in the sub-directories.
P.S. Solutions in powershell or cygwin work for me as well.
This is a cygwinshell answer (bash is an advanced shell that should be reserved for when standard Posix shell (/bin/sh) is insufficient). Note that slashes are reversed intentionally.
I see the format in your list.txt is delimited with commas and whitespace. I am going to assume that this is literal and the reason none of what you've tried so far works. Therefore, I am parsing it with the explicit assumption that comma and then space (, ) is a delimiter and that there is no way to escape them (e.g. if you have a file named apples, oranges.txt then my code would erroneously parse files named apples and oranges.txt).
#!/bin/sh
main_folder="${1:-//internal.company.com/project folder}"
my_folder="${2:-c:/_Masoud/files}"
cd "$main_folder" || exit $?
IFS=', ' find $(cat list.txt) -maxdepth 1 -name \*.xlsx |while IFS= read xlsx; do
mkdir -p "$my_folder/${xlsx%/*}"
cp -a "$xlsx" "$my_folder/$xlsx"
done
I've done some extra work for you to make this more abstract. $main_folder is taken from your first argument (a missing argument will default to //internal.company.com/project folder) and $my_folder is taken from your second argument (if missing, it defaults to c:/_Masoud/files). Don't forget to quote your command-line arguments if they contain spaces or interpretable characters.
After determining your source and destination, I then try to change directories to the source directory. If this fails, the script will stop with the same exit code.
Now for the loop. I've changed the Input Field Separator ($IFS) to be the comma and space (, ) we talked about earlier and then glued the contents of list.txt into its arguments, followed by the requirement of being one level deep (to include PT_NAK05/foobar/baz.xlsx, use -maxdepth 2 or just remove that clause altogether to view the file tree recursively), followed by the requirement of a name matching *.xlsx (this is escaped because your shell would otherwise assume you're talking about the local directory). The output of this is then read into a loop line by line as $xlsx. We recreate the target's parent directory in the new target destination if it's not already present, then we copy the file to that location. cp -a preserves permissions and time stamps.
One thing that made an error in my example was how I set the text file with the folder names. It should be set up with carriage return as separator instead of comma-separated entries.
PT_NAK01
PT_NAK04
PT_NAK05
etc.
With that, this batch-file (in reference to MatSnow's and shellter's comments) works fine for the purpose of the question.
#echo off
set main_folder="\\internal.company.com\project folder\"
set my_folder="C:\_M__\files"
for /f "tokens=*" %%i in (list.txt) DO (
xcopy "%main_folder%\%%i\*.xlsx" "%my_folder%"
)
Note: If you want to type this directly into the command line, you don't need double % for the variables.

ms-dos command shell sort returns "Input file specified two times."

I am trying to sort a .txt file by column 151 and output it to a new .txt file. I enter the code in the shell window at the DOS prompt "sort /+151 C:\Users\Drafter 1\Index1.txt /O C:\Users\Drafter 1\Index2.txt" and the return is "Input file specified two times." It has been a few years since I had to do this, but have never had a problem until now. I can't help but feel I have overlooked something obvious.Any suggestions?
You need to quote the file names if they contain spaces. Correct would be:
sort /+151 "C:\Users\Drafter 1\Index1.txt" /O "C:\Users\Drafter 1\Index2.txt"

Call script on all file names starting with string in folder bash

I have a set of files I want to perform an action on in a folder that i'm hoping to write a scipt for. Each file starts with mazeFilex where x can vary from any number , is there a quick and easy way to perform an action on each file? e.g. I will be doing
cat mazeFile0.txt | ./maze_ppm 5 | convert - maze0.jpg
how can I select each file knowing the file will always start with mazeFile?
for fname in mazeFile*
do
base=${fname%.txt}
base=${base#mazeFile}
./maze_ppm 5 <"$fname" | convert - "maze${base}.jpg"
done
Notes
for fname in mazeFile*; do
This codes starts the loop. Written this way, it is safe for all filenames, whether they have spaces, tabs or whatever in their names.
base=${fname%.txt}; base=${base#mazeFile}
This removes the mazeFile prefix and .txt suffix to just leave the base name that we will use for the output file.
./maze_ppm 5 <"$fname" | convert - "maze${base}.jpg"
The output filename is constructed using base. Note also that cat was unnecessary and has been removed here.
for i in mazeFile*.txt ; do ./maze_ppm 5 <$i | convert - `basename maze${i:8} .txt`.jpg ; done
You can use a for loop to run through all the filenames.
#!/bin/bash
for fn in mazeFile*; do
echo "the next file is $fn"
# do something with file $fn
done
See answer here as well: Bash foreach loop
I see you want a backreference to the number in the mazeFile. Thus I recommend John1024's answer.
Edit: removes the unnecessary ls command, per #guido 's comment.

How to concatenate text files into a pipe?

What command will concatenate text files matching wildcard pattern into a pipe? I'd like to recode e.g.
COPY Q:\Playlists\*.m3u %TEMP%\all.txt /b >nul
SORT %TEMP%\all.txt > %ALL%
without a temp file e.g.
somecommand Q:\Playlists\*.m3u | sort > %ALL%
COPY without a destination filename copies to the current directory, not a pipe (and litters the console with filenames). TYPE with a wildcard source inserts unwanted filepaths in the output. EDIT: As MC ND points out, TYPE's unwanted output goes to stderr, not to the pipe (stdout).
Almost done. Just remove the unwanted output of the type command
type Q:\Playlists\*.m3u 2>nul | sort > %ALL%
When the type command processes more than one file, the list of processed files is echoed to the standard error stream, that is, stream number 2. So, take stream 2 and redirect it to nul
edited to adapt to comments.
As indicated, type command only outputs the file names when more than a file in involved in the operation. So, you can use the type command on only one file and iterate over the list
(for %%a in (*.m3u) do type "%%a") | sort > %ALL%

Word Sorting in Batch

Right let me rewrite this try to make it more clear.
Picture added to make this even clearer:
I have two files
File 1, contains words.
file 2, contains commands.
I need to put words from FILE 1
into FILE 2
I cannot copy-paste them one by one, because there is a LOT of words in FILE 1
File 1 is listed in alphabetical order (by first letter)
File 2 the command does not change
The issue is getting words from file 1 into file 2
but they have to be moved into quotes " " in file 2
so a script that could for example..
Take apple from file 1 and move it between quotes admin.executemotecommand "apple"inside file 2 as it goes down the list keeping the words in order as they move them across.
This could perhaps be done the same way around in which, the script writes the command in front of the words in file 1 as it goes down file 1's list
Is this even possible? I've never seen this done anywhere else and completely clueless if batch is even the right language for it.
The question is a little confusing, but based on your responses in the comments my understanding is that you don't necessarily need the script to edit a preexisting file 2, because you're repeating the same command(s) for each word, so the script can just create a new file based on the words in file 1.
You can do it at the prompt like this:
FOR /F %a IN (words.txt) DO ECHO admin.executeremotecommand "%a" >> commands.txt
The original version of the question indicated that you want more than one command for each word. I take it you changed that in order to simplify that question, and figured you'd just run the script once for each command? However, it's quite simple to have it produce more than one command for each word:
FOR /F %a IN (words.txt) DO (ECHO first.command "%a" & ECHO second.command "%a") >> commands.txt
In a batch file, you'd do it this way:
#ECHO OFF
FOR /F %%a IN (words.txt) DO (
ECHO first.command "%%a"
ECHO second.command "%%a"
) >> commands.txt
BTW, in the code in some of your comments, you surrounded the variable with %'s (%A%). That's incorrect; it would evaluate to the value of %A followed by a literal %. Surrounding with %'s is used only for environment variables. (Note that the %'s around environment variables do not get doubled in a batch file. For example, to get the current date, use ECHO %date% both at the prompt and in a batch file.)

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