Hi all! I came across this site searching for some pieces to help me solve a batch puzzle I'm up against. I am vaguely familiar with DOS and programming in general, but lack specific knowledge of dos commands; I don't want to inadvertently modify files that don't need it, and I don't know how to apply a command to all subdirectories.

I am pulling all my files off of my college server, and have discovered that everything I ftp'd off the server now has ";1" appended to the end of the filename, e.g. I now have an .mp3;1 collection, and my pictures are in .jpg;1 format. Of course I only noticed this after they were all mixed with my normal files, so I have to check to see if the name is incorrect before I rename it, so as not to change the ok files to .m's and .j's.

Here is the problem I'm trying to solve:
I want to batch rename all files in a folder and it's subdirectories (actually across my entire flash drive, but I don't think that distinction matters?) by reading in the current name, checking to see if the name ends in ;1, and if it does then removing the last 2 characters and using the corrected string for the new name.

i.e.

pic.jpg -> pic.jpg
pic2.jpg;1 -> pic2.jpg
music\01.mp3;1 -> music\01.mp3
music\okay.mp3 -> music\okay.mp3
misc\1\file.doc;1 -> misc\1\file.doc

It seems like this could be done with just one if statement within a for loop;
For (all files in directory and subdirectory)
get oldname
If (oldname ends in ;1) {
newname = truncated oldname (remove last 2 characters only regardless of length)
rename oldname newname
}
Next


Any suggestions on how to best ACCOMPLISH this? Code examples (or a working batch file!) would be much appreciated. Also PLEASE explain briefly exactly what each piece of code would do what.

Thanks for any help!For instance, could I do

for /f %%f in('dir /s /b') do If %%f:-2% equ ";1" ren %%f %%f:~0,-2%

or something similar? Haven't tried running this since I'm don't have the files I want to run it on with me.This might work. By using the semi-colon as the delimiter, you can deconstruct the file name, then reconstruct it for the ren command

Code: [Select]@echo off
for /f "tokens=1-2 delims=;" %%i in ('dir /s /b') do (
ren "%%i;%%j" "%%i"
)



Thanks for the help; unfortunately I can't get it to run; I get alternating lines of:

"The SYNTAX of the command is incorrect."
"The system cannot find the file specified."

I am simply cutting and pasting to a .txt file with Notepad, saving to the top directory I want to affect (test folder), and renaming to a .bat EXTENSION. I can't get any version of the above code to do anything. Is my procedure off or am I creating a syntax error somewhere?

p.s. entering the following - for /f "tokens=1-2 delims=;" %%i in ('dir /s /b') ren "%%i;%%j" "%%i" - in the command prompt returns "%%i unexpected at this time" and nothing happens. Modifying to %i returns "ren unexpected at this time"Quote

p.s. entering the following - for /f "tokens=1-2 delims=;" %%i in ('dir /s /b') ren "%%i;%%j" "%%i" - in the command prompt returns "%%i unexpected at this time" and nothing happens. Modifying to %i returns "ren unexpected at this time"

"The system cannot find the file specified."

Code: [Select]@echo off
for /f "tokens=1-2 delims=;" %%i in ('dir /s /b') do (
ren "%%i;%%j" "%%~nxi" 2>nul
)