ravin1
asked on
writing a batch file to get the most recent file
Hi
I am trying to write a batch file that would find the most recent file
in a folder and rename it to recent.csv. All the files in the folder are "CSV" files . I tried the following script exactely but no luck. Can someone tell me what is wrong with then following script. I do not have any experience writing scripts --many thanx
cls
@echo off
dir C:\PERFLOGS /o-d /a-d | find "-" | find ":" > enter.bat
fc enter.bat nul /lb1 /n |date|find " 1: " > enter.bat
echo copy /y %%5.%%6 recent.%%6 > enter.bat
call enter.bat
del enter.bat>nul
cls
I am trying to write a batch file that would find the most recent file
in a folder and rename it to recent.csv. All the files in the folder are "CSV" files . I tried the following script exactely but no luck. Can someone tell me what is wrong with then following script. I do not have any experience writing scripts --many thanx
cls
@echo off
dir C:\PERFLOGS /o-d /a-d | find "-" | find ":" > enter.bat
fc enter.bat nul /lb1 /n |date|find " 1: " > enter.bat
echo copy /y %%5.%%6 recent.%%6 > enter.bat
call enter.bat
del enter.bat>nul
cls
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i think you cannot do this with dos-batch-files.
can you think about using perl?
the following perl script will solve your problem:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use File::Basename;
$f = (sort { (stat($b))[9] <=> (stat($a))[9] } <c:/perlflogs/*.*>)[0];
rename $f, (fileparse ($f))[1]."recent.csv" or die $!;
can you think about using perl?
the following perl script will solve your problem:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use File::Basename;
$f = (sort { (stat($b))[9] <=> (stat($a))[9] } <c:/perlflogs/*.*>)[0];
rename $f, (fileparse ($f))[1]."recent.csv" or die $!;
nice work, billious. the FOR options where new for me :-))
ravin1:
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If you want to COPY (which seems more reasonable) then
replace the 'ren' with 'copy'
A few notes of caution:
1. The if exist .... lines I inserted to warn of the presence of the destination file. Deltet if this is not required.
2. If you do delete those lines, then if the destination file exists and is already open with some utilities (like EXCEL, WORD...) then the copy will fail BECAUSE EXCEL has the file OPEN.
With some utilities (like WORDPAD, for instance) I believe that the file is loaded into RAM and closed. If you then do your COPY, that will succeed - but the original can still be re-saved from WORDPAD and will then overwrite your newly-copied version.
...Bill