Applies to:
  • Microsoft Windows 7 Professional
  • Ms-DOS Command Prompt (6.1.7601)

What?
A quick article on how to rename multiple files using the command prompt and a bit of string manipulation. This example will rename files which contain the string " (Copy)" and replace it with nothing (so removes it). The challenge here is the space character and delimiting by a string.

The Gist
copyraw
-- What I have
Image00001 (Copy).jpg
Image00002 (Copy).jpg

-- What I want
Image00001.jpg
Image00002.jpg
  1.  -- What I have 
  2.  Image00001 (Copy).jpg 
  3.  Image00002 (Copy).jpg 
  4.   
  5.  -- What I want 
  6.  Image00001.jpg 
  7.  Image00002.jpg 

How?
Before I continue, the undo may work in MS Windows (Control key + Z) but don't count on it. I'm going to use a short batch process but to save time on the different ways of doing this, the example below uses a command prompt to a) create a batch file b) use it to rename the files c) delete the batch file.
Category: MS-DOS :: Article: 574

What?
A quick note on how to copy files and folders over without overwriting existing files. It's easy to say "Yes" and replace all files. What I need is something that synchronizes files on an internal hard drive to an external one. I wanted it to copy only the files that were new in the original folder and only copy those over (reason being, the archive is 4 terabytes and backing up only the changed files would speed things up).

Applies to:
  • Microsoft Windows XP
  • Microsoft Windows 7
  • Microsoft Windows 8
  • for Vista and Windows 2008 without XCOPY, try ROBOCOPY.

How?
We're going to use MS-DOS because I'm that old.


What?
A quick note for myself as I'd forgotten how to do this (we're talking technology belonging to the 90s - MS-DOS v6.22). The example wants to loop through a directory and then loop through the line it finds.

Why?
I use another technology for automation but sometimes the simpler solution is the one I make for other people to use. Explaining MS-DOS batch programs is a lot easier and colleagues trust these more than my all-in-one GUI applications.

How?
Note: we're using the code in a DOS Batch program so our variables have to be prefixed with a double-percent rather than just the one:

Intro
Prefixing lines with their respective line number in a text file using a Microsoft Windows Operating System... I've just googled this as I couldn't remember how I did this last time and a number of people showing off their MS-DOS batch skills have proposed stupid extensive solutions when all you need is one command-line.


Why?
Working with programming languages, I often need to write the accompanying documentation. Within the documentation, I may want to refer to a line of code within a text file. I also find myself copying amounts of code into the same document and then needing lines prefixed so that I can explain the code.


What?
Change contents of "original_file.txt"
copyraw
The first line of my code
The second line of my code
The third line of my code
  1.  The first line of my code 
  2.  The second line of my code 
  3.  The third line of my code 
To "results_file.txt"
copyraw
1:  The first line of my code
  2:  The second line of my code
  3:  The third line of my code
  1.  1:  The first line of my code 
  2.    2:  The second line of my code 
  3.    3:  The third line of my code 


How?
Category: MS-DOS :: Article: 419

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