For me to rename a set of rar files to remove a single space and replace it with a more compliant underscore so that I could then do a batch unrar to individual folders with names that I wanted to specify with a loop;

I did this:

Code: [Select]@setlocal
@echo off
echo renaming archives to remove SPACES...
for /F "tokens=1-3 delims=. " %%i in ('dir /b *.rar') do call :do_rename "%%i" "%%j" "%%k"
echo extracting archives to separate directories...
for /F "tokens=1,2 delims=." %%i in ('dir /b *.rar') do call :do_extract "%%i" "%%j"
goto :eof

:do_rename
ren "%~1 %~2.%~3" "%~1_%~2.%~3"

:do_extract
echo extracting %~1.%~2
mkdir "%~1"
unrar e -inul "%~1.%~2" "%~1"
But what if I have FILENAMES with an arbitrary number of spaces in the filename? Obviously I can't pass in an arbitrary number of parameters into the label call. Or can I? I would like to avoid parsing the data and storing count data in a temporary file. Ideally, it would best to do it all in a single loop traversal but is batch file processing that powerful? I am guessing it is but I don't know. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Have I made myself CLEAR enough?

Egads,

JoshIf you are using Windows XP, then you could do something like this...?
Code: [Select]@echo off
echo Renaming archives to remove spaces...
for /F "eol= delims=" %%i in ('dir /b *.rar') do call :do_rename "%%i"
goto :eof

:do_rename
set RENVAR=%1
ren %RENVAR% %RENVAR: =_%

Here is an example of this code being run...
Code: [Select]D:\test>dir /b
a b c dddd e.rar
a b c dddd.rar
a b c.rar
a b.rar
a.rar
test.bat

D:\test>test
Renaming archives to remove spaces...

D:\test>dir /b
a.rar
a_b.rar
a_b_c.rar
a_b_c_dddd.rar
a_b_c_dddd_e.rar
test.bat

D:\test>

Please NOTE this code fails to rename filenames which contain percent (%) ...
Code: [Select]D:\test>dir /b
% b.rar
a b c dddd e.rar
a b c dddd.rar
a b c.rar
a.rar
test.bat

D:\test>test
Renaming archives to remove spaces...
The system cannot find the file specified.

D:\test>dir /b
% b.rar
a.rar
a_b_c.rar
a_b_c_dddd.rar
a_b_c_dddd_e.rar
test.bat

D:\test>

Hope that helps,
JamesA very elegant solution. I was not familiar with the SET function nor the use of the surrounding % character so I'll look them up to understand how it works. Thanks for the assistance. =)

Josh.how about a vbscript. doesn't break on %
Code: [Select]Dim Spaces, ReplaceMent,FSO ,sDir
Spaces=" "
ReplaceMent = "_"
sDir="c:\temp" 'Directory to search files
Set FSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objFolder = FSO.GetFolder(sDir)
For Each Files In objFolder.Files
If Right(Files.Name,4) = ".rar" Then
If InStr(1,Files.Name,Spaces) > 1 Then
NewName = RenameFile(Files.Name,Spaces,ReplaceMent)
WScript.Echo "NewName is ",NewName
Files.Name = NewName
DoUnrar(Files.Path)
End If
End If
Next

Function RenameFile(TheFile,Pattern,ReplacePattern)
FileBaseName = FSO.GetBaseName(TheFile)
FileExt = FSO.GetExtensionName(TheFile)
If Len(FileExt) = 0 Then
FileExt = ""
Else
FileExt = "."&FileExt
End If
NewFileName = Replace(FileBaseName,Pattern,ReplacePattern,vbTextCompare)
NewFileName = NewFileName & NewChars & FileExt
RenameFile = NewFileName
End Function

Function DoUnrar(TheFile)
Dim Command
Set WSHShell = CreateObject("Wscript.shell")
Command = "unrar e -inul " & TheFile & " c:\temp" 'extract to c:\temp
WScript.Echo Command
Set execObj= WshShell.Run(Command)
End Function