Adding prefix to filenames in a folder in Windows 10 - filenames

I want to add a prefix to all the files in one folder. I tried the following command:
for %F in (*) do ren "%F" "Zer_%~nxF".
It creates an endless loop of adding the prefix over and over. Can anyone suggest a correction?

Related

How can I use source script with variables in CygWin?

I'm trying to use external script with variables, but in result I get only "no such file or directory".
1st.ksh
#!bin/ksh
PATHNAME = `dirname $0`
. $PATHNAME/2nd.ksh
Echo $EXTVAR
2nd.ksh
#!bin/ksh
EXTVAR=1
I tried to use "Source" instead of "." (Source $PATHNAME/2nd.ksh) and I get the same result.
To run script I'm using full path to the script - cygdrive/e/Folder/1st.ksh.
2nd.ksh in this path too (cygdrive/e/Folder/).
All rights was granted for both files (chmod u=rwx,g=rwx,o=rwx filename).
If I put files in cygwin home path (/home/username/) I have the same.
Please help to understand what I'm doing wrong.
Thanks in advance!
$() should be used in ksh instead of `` (link)
. should be user instead of source (link)
"=" must not be surrounded with spaces. You should write: PATHNAME=$(dirname $0)
you should be aware of case-sensitiveness: echo, source

add prefix to files with rename - error argument too long

I have thousands of files inside a directory I need to rename adding a prefix like "th_" so that files will be th_65461516846.jpg
but I can't due to the error "argument too long"
I have used this command
rename 's/^/th_/' *
thanks!
The xargs program is used to break command lines into multiple commands to avoid blowing the shell line length limit. In your case, you'd use:
ls | xargs rename 's/^/th_/'
Which repeatedly executes rename with a portion of the output of ls until the list of files is exhausted. Do be aware this idiom requires special attention if the file names have spaces or other funny characters in them (which I'm assuming isn't so based on your example).
This one did the job
for f in *; do mv "$f" "${f/9/th_}";done
or
for f in * ; do mv $f th_${f#} ; done
I don't know what differs between the 2 but in my case they both work.

rename file in bourne shell

I am trying to write a bourne-shell script that takes a directory as a parameter and look for images named ixxx.a and rename them to ixxx_a.img where "xxx means the extension number for exemple image files would be named i001.a , i002.a ,i003.a ...)
here what I tried
mv $1/f[0-9][0-9][0-9].a $1/f[0-9][0-9][0-9]_a.img
but it says that the DEST is not a directory.
Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.
for i in $1/f[0-9][0-9][0-9].a; do
mv $i ${i%.a}_a.img
done
However, this does not consider blank spaces in the file/folder names. In this case you'd have to use while so you get one file name per line (see below for bonus). There are probably dozens of other ways, including rename.
find $1 -maxdepth 1 -type f -name "f[0-9][0-9][0-9].a"|while read i; do
mv "$i" "${i%.a}_a.img"
done
Edit: Perhaps I should explain what I did there. It's called string substitution and the main use cases are these for a variable var:
# Get first two characters
${var:0:2}
# Remove shortest rear-anchored pattern - this one would give the directory name of a file, for example
${var%/*}
# Remove longest rear-anchored pattern
${var%%/*}
# Remove shortest front-anchored pattern - this in particular removes a leading slash
${var#/}
# Remove longest front-anchored pattern - this would remove all but the base name of a file given its path
# Replace a by b
${var//a/b}
${var##*/}
For more see the man page.

batch scripting: how to get parent dir name without full path?

I'm working on a script that processes a folder and there is always one file in it I need to rename. The new name should be the parent directory name. How do I get this in a batch file? The full path to the dir is known.
It is not very clear how the script is supposed to become acquainted with the path in question, but the following example should at least give you an idea of how to proceed:
FOR %%D IN ("%CD%") DO SET "DirName=%%~nxD"
ECHO %DirName%
This script gets the path from the CD variable and extracts the name only from it to DirName.
You can use basename command:
FULLPATH=/the/full/path/is/known
JUSTTHENAME=$(basename "$FULLPATH")
You can use built-in bash tricks:
FULLPATH=/the/full/path/is/known
JUSTTHENAME=${FULLPATH##*/}
Explanations:
first # means 'remove the pattern from the begining'
second # means 'remove the longer possible pattern'
*/ is the pattern
Using built-in bash avoid to call an external command (i.e. basename) therefore this optimises you script. However the script is less portable.

Using xcopy to copy files from several directories to one directory

Is it possible to use xcopy to copy files from several directories into one directory using only one xcopy command?
Assuming that I have the directory tree
root\Source\Sub1\Sub2
I want to copy all .xml files from the directory root\Source including sub folder to root\Destination. I don't want to copy the folder structure, just the files.
As DandDI said, you don't need xcopy. for statement helps much. However, you don't need to state process outcome of dir command as well, this command helps better
for /R c:\source %f in (*.xml) do copy "%f" x:\destination\
By the way, when you use it from a batch file, you need to add spare % in front of variable %f hence your command line should be;
for /R c:\source %%f in (*.xml) do copy %%f x:\destination\
when you use it within a batch
Should surround %f with double quotes otherwise it will fail copying file names with spaces
You don't need xcopy for that.
You can get a listing of all the files you want and perform the copy that way.
For example in windows xp command prompt:
for /f "delims==" %k in ('dir c:\source\*.xml /s /b') do copy "%k" x:\destination\
The /s goes into all subdirectories and the /b lists only the files name and path. Each file inturn is assigned to the %k variable, then the copy command copies the file to the destination. The only trick is making sure the destination is not part of the source.
The Answer to this problem which I think is "How to gather all your files out of all the little subdirectories into one single directory" is to download a piece of software called XXCOPY. This is freely available via XXCOPY.COM and there's a free non-commercial version fortunately. One of the Frequently Asked Questions on the help facility on XXCOPY.COM is effectively "How do I gather all my files into one directory" and it tells you which switch to use. XXCOPY is though a surefire way of doing this and it comes in a .zip archive so unzipping it can be not that straightforward but it's not particularly difficult either. There is an unzipping program called ZipGenius available through the ZipGenius.it website so maybe before you download XXCOPY then download ZipGenius then it's a smallpart smalltime double wammy(!)
Might not be the exact answer but if anyone would like to do this without coding.
You can search the name of the item inside a specific folder, and then you can copy the results and later paste it into your desired folder. It will rename the same file to be the folder I believe as the prefix and then the repeated name.