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File Extension change

Posted on 2012-12-27

3 solutions

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Last Modified: 2012-12-27

This is suppose to be straightforward but it's not, I need to change the file extension using a batch job on files with .txt extension to .bak, what the simplest way.

Thx

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Question by:Roberto Madro R.

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14 Comments

LVL 1

Expert Comment

by:Shizzo

ID: 387244492012-12-27

All .TXT files?

Author Comment

by:Roberto Madro R.

ID: 387244652012-12-27

Yes,

And that's my issue, I need to retain the name(s) of the file(s) but only change their extension.

LVL 56

Expert Comment

by:Bill Prew

ID: 387244662012-12-27

At a command prompt you can just do this from that folder:

REN *.TXT *.BAK

~bp

LVL 22

Assisted Solution

by:mcsween

mcsween earned 333 total points

ID: 387244812012-12-27

I would use vbscript for this. Save the code below to a .vbs and change "C:\MyFolder\" to the folder you want to work from.

Option Explicit
Dim fso, strFldr, colFiles, objFile

strFldr = "C:\MyFolder\"
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

Set colFiles = fso.GetFolder(strFldr).Files

For Each objFile In colFiles
	If Eval ("txt" = fso.GetExtensionName(objFile)) Then
		fso.MoveFile objFile.path, Left(objFile.path,Len(objFile.path) - 3) & "bak"
	End If
Next

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Author Comment

by:Roberto Madro R.

ID: 387244922012-12-27

NO, "Ren" expects a literal in the second half of the command, "*. etc." works well with Delete, Copy, etc., not with "Ren"

LVL 1

Expert Comment

by:Shizzo

ID: 387245102012-12-27

ren *.txt *.bak will work if they are all in one folder.

Author Comment

by:Roberto Madro R.

ID: 387245112012-12-27

How do I invoke this?

Author Comment

by:Roberto Madro R.

ID: 387245502012-12-27

How do I call up this vbscript?

LVL 22

Expert Comment

by:mcsween

ID: 387245562012-12-27

Open Notepad and paste the code in then save it with a .vbs extension. To call it just double click it.

You can call it from the command line too

cscript.exe C:\Path\To\Script.vbs

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LVL 56

Expert Comment

by:Bill Prew

ID: 387245792012-12-27

The command I suggested will certainly work fine, here's an example.

C:\Temp\ee>dir
 Volume in drive C is Windows 7
 Volume Serial Number is 0000-0000

 Directory of C:\Temp\ee

12/27/2012  01:17 PM    <DIR>          .
12/27/2012  01:17 PM    <DIR>          ..
12/27/2012  01:17 PM                 2 1.txt
12/27/2012  01:17 PM                 2 2.txt
12/27/2012  01:17 PM                 2 3.txt
               3 File(s)              6 bytes
               2 Dir(s)   4,508,450,816 bytes free

C:\Temp\ee>ren *.txt *.bak

C:\Temp\ee>dir
 Volume in drive C is Windows 7
 Volume Serial Number is 0000-0000

 Directory of C:\Temp\ee

12/27/2012  01:17 PM    <DIR>          .
12/27/2012  01:17 PM    <DIR>          ..
12/27/2012  01:17 PM                 2 1.bak
12/27/2012  01:17 PM                 2 2.bak
12/27/2012  01:17 PM                 2 3.bak
               3 File(s)              6 bytes
               2 Dir(s)   4,508,454,912 bytes free

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~bp

Author Comment

by:Roberto Madro R.

ID: 387245812012-12-27

Thanks, it worked,

Can I call a .vbs from a batch file (I'm thinking I should be able to), what do you think?

Thx

LVL 22

Assisted Solution

by:mcsween

mcsween earned 333 total points

ID: 387245942012-12-27

sure can just call it like this in your batch file.

cscript.exe C:\Path\To\Script.vbs

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LVL 56

Accepted Solution

by:Bill Prew

Bill Prew earned 167 total points

ID: 387246002012-12-27

And this will even work at a DOS command line if you don't want to run it from the actual folder:

ren "c:\temp\ee\*.txt" *.bak

I don't understand why you would want to call a VBS script to do this one line DOS command, from a BAT file. Am I missing something?

~bp

Author Closing Comment

by:Roberto Madro R.

ID: 387248422012-12-27

In good hands with EE, Thanks to both of you "mcsween" & "billprew".

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