How to copy a file to many directories using prompt? - windows

Question

I need to copy a file and paste it in many directories, can I do this with a single command in windows prompt?
I tried this code, but it didn't work:
> copy C:\main\folder-1\docs\file.txt C:\main\*\docs
The names are illustratives, but the idea is: inside the "main" folder I have 50 folders ("folder-1", "folder-2", ..., "folder-50")... and inside each "folder-N", I have other folder named "docs". Every time that I create a file into any "folder-N\docs" I need to paste it into all "folder-N\docs".
Is it possible? or I really need to paste the file, folder by folder?

Answer 1

Straight up from the command line:
for /D %x in (c:\main\*.*) DO COPY c:\main\folder-1\docs\file.txt %x\docs\file.txt
From a BAT file or CMD file (not from the command line), you need to escape the % variable again
for /D %%x in (c:\main\*.*) DO COPY c:\main\folder-1\docs\file.txt %%x\docs\file.txt
Of course, if the subdirectory "docs" directory doesn't exist in each subfolder of "main", the iteration will print an error. That's why in my example above I explicitly specify copying to %x\docs\file.txt. If I had just said `%x\docs" as the target of the copy, it might create a file called "docs" that contains the contents of the file.txt source.
More information on for loops here and here:
Or just type "help for" at the command prompt.

Answer 2

#ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
SET "sourcedir=U:\sourcedir\one"
:: Build list of directorynames
SET "dnames="
FOR /f "delims=" %%a IN ('dir /b /ad "%sourcedir%" ') DO (
IF EXIST "%sourcedir%\%%a\docs\" SET "dnames=!dnames! "%%a""
)
FOR %%a IN (%dnames%) DO FOR %%b IN (%dnames%) DO IF NOT %%a==%%b (
FOR %%s IN ("%sourcedir%\%%~a\docs\*") DO (
IF NOT EXIST "%sourcedir%\%%~b\docs\%%~nxs" ECHO(COPY "%sourcedir%\%%~a\docs\%%~nxs" "%sourcedir%\%%~b\docs\%%~nxs"
)
)
GOTO :EOF
You would need to change the setting of sourcedir to suit your circumstances.
The required COPY commands are merely ECHOed for testing purposes. After you've verified that the commands are correct, change ECHO(COPY to COPY to actually copy the files.
I'd suggest that you create a testing subtree of a few small subdirectories before releasing in anger. Remember that this "report" may say to copy the same file from dir1 and dir5 into dir3 but when released because the file would actually be copied from dir1 to dir3, the copy from dir5 would not occur (when the copy from dir5 is checked, the copy from dir1 would already have occurred.)
You could suppress the copy report by appending >nul to the copy line.
Note that this routine is oriented towards one-file-at-a-time and showing what should be done. This following routine should do the same thing, is shorter but doesn't provide an elegant testing structure:
#ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
SET "sourcedir=U:\sourcedir\one"
:: Build list of directorynames
SET "dnames="
FOR /f "delims=" %%a IN ('dir /b /ad "%sourcedir%" ') DO (
IF EXIST "%sourcedir%\%%a\docs\" SET "dnames=!dnames! "%%a""
)
FOR %%a IN (%dnames%) DO FOR %%b IN (%dnames%) DO IF NOT %%a==%%b (
ECHO(xcopy /d "%sourcedir%\%%~a\docs\*" "%sourcedir%\%%~b\docs\"
)
GOTO :EOF
Again, the xcopy is reported, not executed for testing purposes.