I have a problem with the variable %CD% in a batch-file. It adds a backslash if the script is run from the root of a drive.
as an example: updatedir=%CD%\Update & echo %updatedir% will return something like
From a folder E:\New Folder\Update
From a drive root E:\\Update
Is there any way to get rid of the extra backslash if run from root?
Yes %CD% only has a trailing \ if the current directory is the root. You could get rid of any trailing backslash that might be there. But there is a simpler solution.
Use the undocumented %__CD__% instead, which always appends the trailing backslash. This makes it easy to build a clean path, regardless of the current directory.
set "updatedir=%__CD__%Update
You can do something like this:
set "CurrentDir=%CD%"
if "%CD:~-1%"=="\" set "CurrentDir=%CD:~0,-1%"
Since you don't want to go changing the system variable %CD%, this sets a new variable %CurrentDir% to the current value of %CD%. Then, it checks to see if the last character in %CD% is a \, and if it is, sets %CurrentDir% to the value of %CD%, minus the last character.
This question/answer has more information on using substrings in batch files.
replace every occurence of \\ with \.
echo %updatedir:\\=\%
Related
I've many VBA scripts and functions where I read a manually inserted (in Excel cell) local disk paths and I'm still confused about whether to normalize the inserted paths by adding or trimming the trailing backslash.
What do you use as the general standard? with or without the trailing backslash?
My confusion is fueled by the fact that for example ActiveWorkbook.path returns a path without trailing backslash while the CopyFile (FileSystemObject) method for the "Destination" parameter wants the trailing backslash otherwise it considers it as a file instead than a directory (and can give unexpected Permission denied errors)
The general idea is to always end a directory's name with a backslash. This is advised in the URL you mention, but there are quite some other situations as well (check my answer on a regularly occuring xcopy problem).
As mentioned: when you don't put a backslash, the question might arise "Is it a file or a directory?". Putting the backslash solves that question.
In top of that, while programming, regularly you might have following situation:
complete_filename = path + filename
Obviously, if you have forgotten to put the backslash at the end, this might cause problems (e.g. you don't want to create a file, called "C:\Tempoutput.txt" instead of "C:\Temp\output.txt", I presume? :-) )
I'm making a CSH script where I am looping through the file names in a directory:
foreach i ($INPUTDIR/*)
$i
end
i ends up being something like this:
/dir1/dir2/dir3/dir4/fileNameHead_middle_2016080924
My question is, using CSH, how can I tokenize each path, first splitting on the forward slashes, then on the underscores, collecting only the last token?
The basename utility deletes any prefix ending with the last slash / character present in string (after first stripping trailing slashes), and a suffix, if given. On my system there's also a gbasename which is part of GNU coreutils which does essentially the same thing with a few more options.
basename is part of POSIX, so it's safe to use everywhere.
Context
I am thinking I can solve a problem with the proper creation of a *.bat file.
I am automating a process in a backup program called Acronis Backup and Recovery.
I am able to make a script (jScript) that creates all the syntax except for one part correctly.
In a normal command prompt the command I would run looks like this
acrocmd backup file --include="C:\documents\Gale_thesis.doc" "D:\Sandbox\!oDC!-IMG_0222.MOV" "C:\temp\magnifyReader" --loc="D:\backups" --arc="Backup1a"
The jScript I am creating can generate this with no problem and save as a *.bat file. This can works perfect if my file names are clean. By clean I mean no characters the batch files think are key words and commands.
Anytime I have a word like “copy” or a character like “!” in a file name it fails.
Question
So I am now wondering if loading variables from a text file would do the trick?
I am sure a lot of readers know that when load multiple file/folder paths at the command line you need to surround them with double quotes.
So I need this variable to have the correct syntax to be parsed by the batch file and work like the example when I type it directly at a command prompt.
I had tried to follow info about using for /f etc.
But the examples are not broad enough for me to understand, nobody seems to explain how to use these variables mixed in with other syntax.
I know a little about working with variable in a *.bat file. My jScript application can produce the text in any format a list, escaped, what ever is needed.
Thanks
I might suggest you to take a look at escaping characters
http://www.robvanderwoude.com/escapechars.php
in for loops !var! is used when delayedexpansion is enabled so you might need to escape it
I used the following code provided by Aacini to test the arguments that are being passed
#echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
set argCount=0
for %%x in (%*) do (
set /A argCount+=1
set "argVec[!argCount!]=%%~x"
)
echo Number of processed arguments: %argCount%
and since delayedexpansion is enabled I had to escape ! character
arg.bat --include="C:\documents\Gale_thesis.doc" "D:\Sandbox\^^^!oDC^^^!-IMG_0222.MOV" "C:\temp\magnifyReader" --loc="D:\backups" --arc="Backup1a"
Also about the triple escape quotes ^^^
the problem here is that we need to pass two special characters,
1st is the up arrow ^ and 2nd is the exclamation mark !
so the 2nd batch file (the one that reads our arguments) should get ^!
to escape ^ we use ^^ and to escape ! we use ^!
Thanks to Aacini for his code in HERE
I need to have my VB.NET program rename a file over the network.
Microsoft says that My.Computer.FileSystem.RenameFile does not work if the file path starts with two backslashes ("\\"). So, what other way is there of doing this? I just need to rename a file in the domain, for instance:
rename("\\domain\1\exemple.txt", "\\domain\1\exemple2.txt")
The second parameter for rename should be just the file name eg:
My.Computer.FileSystem.RenameFile("C:\Test.txt", "SecondTest.txt")
So try changing your code to this:
My.Computer.FileSystem.RenameFile(#"\\domain\1\exemple.txt", "exemple2.txt")
Also beware of escaping because \ is an escape character, so add a # before any string that contains \. This will cause it to ignore escaping and therefore will treat \ as a normal character
I am using NVelocity to process various PowerShell scripts before they are executed against a server.
My question is how to escape a backslash trailing a variable:
e.g.
ls \\$computername\c$
$computername should be replaced with a valid computer name at runtime, but the trailing backslash (\c$) means that it does not.
Thanks
Ben
Mauricio's suggestion did not work for me. I think this because I was referencing the c$ admin share and Velocity uses the '$' sign to declare variables/objects.
Instead I created variables to contain such references so my solution was:
#set ($C = '\c$')
ls \\\\$computername$C
As per http://velocity.apache.org/engine/devel/user-guide.html#escapingvalidvtlreferences