Deleting With a Batch File

[ravelogic]

Hey!

I have about 16GB of files (over 11,000) in a folder and most of them are unneeded. The only ones I need have a certain sequence of characters in the file name. How do I delete all files that don't contain this sequence using a batch file? Although, if this can be done easier in the command line I'd like to know how as well.

Thanks in advance.

[ravelogic]

After a couple more hours of searching the internet, I have found a batch file that does the trick:

:: DELE.bat
:: Deletes Current Directory Entries Except for Specified Files
:: Wildcards (* and ?) may be Used in File Names
::  (Hidden, System, and Read-Only Files are Not Affected)
::
@ECHO OFF

IF "%1" == "" GOTO END

MD SAVE

:MOVE-FILES
XCOPY %1 SAVE > NUL
SHIFT
IF "%1" == "" GOTO FILES-DELETE
GOTO MOVE-FILES

:FILES-DELETE
ECHO Y | DEL . > NUL
MOVE SAVE\*.* . > NUL
RD SAVE
DR

:END

http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~ak621/DOS/Bat-Adv1.html#DELE

Thanks anyway.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

Thanks for the feedback!

Do you know what the 'DR' command near the end of the script does?

[ravelogic]

I think it's supposed to return the results but it doesn't do anything except give an error about it being an unknown command.

Maybe it's just a typo and it should have been DIR?

[PatrickMc]

Hey!

I have about 16GB of files (over 11,000) in a folder and most of them are unneeded. The only ones I need have a certain sequence of characters in the file name. How do I delete all files that don't contain this sequence using a batch file? Although, if this can be done easier in the command line I'd like to know how as well.

Thanks in advance.

I will assume the following.

1. The path to the folder is C:\folder. This folder contains the 16 GB files.

2. The sequence of chars you are looking for is, to make it more general, "k0\naP l\nk<any number of unprintable characters>Q". (k0 followed by newline, then aP, a space, I, a new line, nk, any number of spaces/tabs etc.)

3. Files are text files.

Here is the script

# script delete_no_sequence.txt
# Collect the list of all files.
var str list; lf -n "*" "C:\folder" > $list
# Process one file at a time.
while ($list <> "")
do
	# Get the next file.
	var str file; lex "1" $list > $file
	# Read file into a string variable.
	var str content; cat $file > $content
	# Does the content contain our sequence ?
	if ( { sen -r "^k0\naP l\nk;Q^" $content } <= 0 )
		# No, content does NOT contain the sequence of characters. Delete this file.
		system delete ("\""+$file+"\"")
	endif
done

Script is in biterscripting ( http://www.biterscripting.com ). We are using -r option to indicate regular expression with the sen command (string enumerator/counter). We are using ; (semicolon) to indicate any number of spaces/tabs/etc. . To try the script, save the script as C:\Scripts\delete_no_sequence.txt, start biterscripting, enter the following command.

script -l delete_no_sequence.txt

I have not been able to test. Test it first with test folder and test files.

Patrick