Dos Help

alancool

I would like to delete every file listed in a text document (potentially thousands). I thought the best way to do this is with a batch file. Pass each line in the file as a parameter to a For loop.

I referenced the help and google so please nobody come back and say use google, lazy.

I have been tinkering with this line
for /F "eol=; TOKENS=2,3,* delims=,"%1 in test1.txt do @echo %i %j %k

the file test1.txt contains

DEL \Media\Music\PIC.jpg
DEL \Media\Music\PIC1.jpg
DEL \Media\Music\PIC2.JPG

I keep getting thE message ...IN WAS UNEXPECTED AT THIS TIME

Capt'n Midnight

in a batch file you have to use %%

for /F "eol=; TOKENS=2,3,* delims=,"%1 in test1.txt do @echo %i %j %k

also your %1 should be %%i .... echo %%i %%j %%k etc.

oh don't forget quotes around file names to be on the safe side

eg; del "c:\program files\spyware\"

de8o

Up to your usual high standards Capt'n Midnight. However aren't you over complicating things. If the .txt file is renamed to a .bat file and run it would surely do the same as it has DEL before filename.

Also alancool depending on how this text file is create you may want to add /q

DEL /q filename

just in case...

Capt'n Midnight

Yeah if the del is there ain't much point - but the OP did want to delete files in a list and it saves the effort of inserting DEL on each line

generate and filter a list - you could also use Xcopy /L and the Exclude list as another way of generating a list of files to copy/delete/process
DIR /B >List
find /i "keyword" <list >list2
find /v /i "keep" <list2>list3
notepad list3

alancool

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

DIR /B >List
find /i "keyword" <list >list2
find /v /i "keep" <list2>list3
notepad list3

Please pardon this question but what is the purpose of the 2nd last line in this batch file, is it to refine the list further?

Thanks 4 your contribution de8o that was an obvious work around but I didn't spot it, tanx
But i still want to pass each line of the list (which now contains just the file path and name) to the for loop.

As you instructed Capt'n Midnight I doubled up on % signs but to no avail. the batch file now looks like

for /F "eol=; TOKENS=2,3,* delims=, " %%1 in test1.txt do @echo %%i %%j %%k

and the DOS output reads

\Media\Music>test1
test1.txt was unexpected at this time

\Media\Music>for /F "eol=; TOKENS=2,3,* delims=, " %%1 in test1.txt do @echo %%i %%j %%k

\Media\Music>

Any other ideas?

Capt'n Midnight

alancool wrote:

for /F "eol=; TOKENS=2,3,* delims=, " %%1 in test1.txt do @echo %%i %%j %%k

The two FIND lines are if you want to include / exclude files based on keywords in the name

you use one % on the command line
and two %%'s in a batch file - it's an annoyance when testing stuff out


%0 means the batch file name
%1 means the next word on the command line when you call the file !
Echo Hello from %0 - Processing input file %1
for /F "tokens=1* delims=" %%a in (%1) do echo %%a

using space as a delim will cause problems when you hit a file with a space in it's name.. - getting these right is a real pain when calling another file

dir /b > file.txt
for /F "tokens=1* delims=" %%a in (file.txt) do echo %%a

tokens=1* - puts the entire line in %a
delims=" - ignore spaces etc.

you could do something like
dir /s/b - the /s gets all subdirs and drive letter
for /F "tokens=1,2* delims=:" %%a in (file.txt) do echo %%a %%b
%a will be the letter and %%b the file name

the full file name would be "%%a:%%b"

alancool

oh Capt'n my Capt'n cheers for that worked a treat its very much appreciated! :cool: