MS-DOS

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
-- What I have
Image00001 (Copy).jpg
Image00002 (Copy).jpg

-- What I want
Image00001.jpg
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.

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"
The first line of my code
The second line of my code
The third line of my code
To "results_file.txt"
  1:  The first line of my code
  2:  The second line of my code
  3:  The third line of my code


How?

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Kind Regards,

Joel Lipman
www.joellipman.com

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