Cutting numbers off a file name

[avalancha]

Hey everyone,

I need a batch-file that modifies some file names for me. The files all look like this:
abcd12345.csv
and I have to get rid of the numbers. It's also always the same amount of numbers that I have to cut off.
So far I found this:

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for %%i in (D:\"Documents and Settings"\....\test\*.csv) do @(
for /f "delims=1234567890" %%a in ("%%~ni") do @(
ren "%%i" "%%a%%~xi"
))

and it works... kind of... it does the cutting, but only on one file. So something must be wrong with the for-loop
The echo prints out: "A duplicate file name exists or the file cannot be found"

Anyone see my mistake?

Best regards,
Patrick

[avery_larry]

First, get rid of the "@"'s and turn echo on and see what it's trying to do.

Second, I'm not sure that the first for loop works with embedded double quotes. (But I'm not sure -- I've never tried the way you have it.)

I would do:
*untested*

Code: Select all

cd /d "d:\documents and settings\.....\test"
for /f "delims=" %%i in ('dir /b *.csv') do (
   for /f "tokens=* delims=0123456789" %%a in ("%%~ni") do (
      ren "%%~i" "%%~a%%~xi"
   )
)

[ghostmachine4]

Hey everyone,

I need a batch-file that modifies some file names for me. The files all look like this:
abcd12345.csv
and I have to get rid of the numbers. It's also always the same amount of numbers that I have to cut off.
So far I found this:

but do you have other numbers besides the 5, eg a1cd12345.csv

[avalancha]

First, get rid of the "@"'s and turn echo on and see what it's trying to do.

Second, I'm not sure that the first for loop works with embedded double quotes. (But I'm not sure -- I've never tried the way you have it.)

I would do:
*untested*

Code: Select all

cd /d "d:\documents and settings\.....\test"
for /f "delims=" %%i in ('dir /b *.csv') do (
   for /f "tokens=* delims=0123456789" %%a in ("%%~ni") do (
      ren "%%~i" "%%~a%%~xi"
   )
)

naaaah we are somehow close... it runs and gives me the following output:

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D:\Documents and Settings\.......\test>(for /F "tokens=* delims=0123456789" %
a in ("test12345") do (ren "test12345.csv" "%~a.csv ) )

D:\Documents and Settings\.......\test>(ren "test12345.csv" "test12345.csv" )

So the variables are read in correctly... but it does not cut it off
the files stay untouched

but do you have other numbers besides the 5, eg a1cd12345.csv

Well yes, there sometimes is a number within the name of the document, the names differ, but it's always the same ending: 5 random digits that I need to put away

[ghostmachine4]

download sed for windows, then you can do this

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C:\test>dir /B *csv
a10bc12345.csv
abc12345.csv

C:\test>dir /B *csv | sed -r "s/[0-9]{5}\.csv/.csv/"
a10bc.csv
abc.csv

use a for loop if desired. Note, this will not affect the digits mixed together with the alphabets.

[avalancha]

download sed for windows, then you can do this

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C:\test>dir /B *csv
a10bc12345.csv
abc12345.csv

C:\test>dir /B *csv | sed -r "s/[0-9]{5}\.csv/.csv/"
a10bc.csv
abc.csv

use a for loop if desired. Note, this will not affect the digits mixed together with the alphabets.

Damn, looks nice, but I can't use this, I'm sorry. See I have to implement all this on a company computer system where I'm not able to add additional programs e.g.
I have to get this done with what is provided by Windows (XP) as it is...

Thx a lot so far

[ghostmachine4]

Note you only have to download sed once (from another comp) and use it everywhere. ITs only a small .exe file. Otherwise, another native alternative is vbscript

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Set objFS = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
strFolder="c:\test"
Set objFolder = objFS.GetFolder(strFolder)
Set objRE = New RegExp
objRE.Global     = True
objRE.IgnoreCase = False
objRE.Pattern = "\d{5}.csv"
For Each strFile In objFolder.Files
   If objFS.GetExtensionName(strFile) = "csv" Then
      Set Matches = objRE.Execute(strFile.Name)
      For Each Match in Matches   ' Iterate Matches collection.            
           strNewFile=objRE.Replace(strFile.Name,".csv")    
           strFile.Name=strNewFile 'this is to rename the file
      Next                   
   End If   
Next 

save the above as myrename.vbs , and on the command line, run it as

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c:\test> cscript //nologo myrename.vbs

[avalancha]

I KNEW it'd be smarter to do it with VBS... Thanks a lot ghost, you saved my day

[avery_larry]

Oops -- I messed up the tokens part. You'd have to specify a max. number of tokens for it to work. In this case, I think 2 would work:

*untested*

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cd /d "d:\documents and settings\.....\test"
for /f "delims=" %%i in ('dir /b *.csv') do (
   for /f "tokens=1,2 delims=0123456789" %%a in ('%%~ni") do (
      ren "%%~i" "%%~a%%~b%%~xi"
   )
)

For an unspecified number of tokens, you'd have to do a call/goto loop or a recursive call to the for loop, stripping 1 token off each time until you process all of them.

[orange_batch]

Jeez guys, help him out with the obvious solution.

If every file ends with 5 numbers, all you have to do is:

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setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

for /r "C:\...\My Folder" %%x in (*.csv) do (
set "truncatedname=%%~nx"
set "truncatedname=!truncatedname:~0,-5!"
ren "%%x" !truncatedname!.csv
)

That scans the target folder and all subfolders for *.csv. Change C:\...\My Folder to your target folder to scan, obviously.

If you don't want to include subfolders, replace the "for /r ..." line with this:

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for %%x in ("C:\...\My Folder\*.csv") do (

Again, change C:\...\My Folder to your target folder to scan.

[ghostmachine4]

If EVERY file ends with 5 numbers in that particular folder, that should be fine. But if not, it will truncate every last 5 characters for files that doesn't need to change. It will be good if there is a wildcard (regex) search on 5 numbers before truncating.