Iterate all files in a directory using a for loop

Question

How can I iterate over each file in a directory using a for loop   And how could I tell if a certain entry is a directory or if it s just a file

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Here s my go with comments in the code   I m just brushing up by biatch skills so forgive any blatant errors   I tried to write an all in one solution as best I can with a little modification where the user requires it   Some important notes  Just change the variable recursive to FALSE if you only want the root directories files and folders processed  Otherwise  it goes through all folders and files   C amp C most welcome      echo off title   nx0 chcp 65001  gt NUL set  dir c  users  username  desktop        Recursive Loop routine - First Written by Ste on - 2020 01 24 - Rev 1    setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion rem THIS IS A RECURSIVE SOLUTION  ALBEIT IF YOU CHANGE THE RECURSIVE TO FALSE  NO  rem By removing the  s switch from the first loop if you want to loop through rem the base folder only  set recursive TRUE if  recursive  equ TRUE   set recursive  s   else   set recursive    endlocal  amp  set recursive  recursive  cd  d  dir  echo Directory  cd  for   F in       do  echo        F                                     Loop through the current directory     for  f  delims      D in   dir   dir    ad  b  recursive    do         Loop through the sub-directories only if the recursive variable is TRUE       echo Directory   D   echo  recursive    find   s   gt NUL 2 gt NUL  amp  amp        pushd   D     cd  d   D     for  f  delims      F in   dir      b   do                           Then loop through each pushd  folder and work on the files and folders          echo    aF   find  v  d   gt NUL 2 gt NUL  amp  amp                              This will weed out the directories by checking their attributes for the lack of  d  with the  v switch therefore you can now work on the files only           rem You can do stuff to your files here        rem Below are some examples of the info you can get by expanding the   F variable        rem Uncomment one at a time to see the results        echo         F            amp rem expands   F removing any surrounding quotes           rem echo         dF           amp rem expands   F to a drive letter only       rem echo         fF           amp rem expands   F to a fully qualified path name       rem echo         pF           amp rem expands   A to a path only       rem echo         nF           amp rem expands   F to a file name only       rem echo         xF           amp rem expands   F to a file extension only       rem echo         sF           amp rem expanded path contains short names only       rem echo         aF           amp rem expands   F to file attributes of file       rem echo         tF           amp rem expands   F to date time of file       rem echo         zF           amp rem expands   F to size of file       rem echo         dpF          amp rem expands   F to a drive letter and path only       rem echo         nxF          amp rem expands   F to a file name and extension only       rem echo         fsF          amp rem expands   F to a full path name with short names only       rem echo         dp dir F     amp rem searches the directories listed in the  dir  environment variable and expands   F to the fully qualified name of the first one found  If the environment variable name is not defined or the file is not found by the search  then this modifier expands to the empty string       rem echo         ftzaF        amp rem expands   F to a DIR like output line                     popd           echo   amp  pause  amp  cls

User · Answer

This for-loop will list all files in a directory   pushd somedir for  f  delims     f in   dir  b  a-d-h-s   do echo   f popd    delims   is useful to show long filenames with spaces in it        b  show only names  not size dates etc    Some things to know about dir s  a argument    Any use of   a  would list everything  including hidden and system attributes    ad  would only show subdirectories  including hidden and system ones    a-d  argument eliminates content with  D irectory attribute    a-d-h-s  will show everything  but entries with  D irectory   H idden  S ystem attribute    If you use this on the commandline  remove a       Hope this helps

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To iterate through all files and folders you can use  for  F  delims     a in   dir  b  s   do echo   a   To iterate through all folders only not with files  then you can use  for  F  delims     a in   dir  a d  b  s   do echo   a   Where  s will give all results throughout the directory tree in unlimited depth  You can skip  s if you want to iterate through the content of that folder not their sub folder  Implementing search in iteration  To iterate through a particular named files and folders you can search for the name and iterate using for loop  for  F  delims     a in   dir  file or folder name   b  s   do echo   a   To iterate through a particular named folders directories and not files  then use  AD in the same command  for  F  delims     a in   dir  folder name   b  AD  s   do echo   a

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In my case I had to delete all the files and folders underneath a temp folder  So this is how I ended up doing it  I had to run two loops one for file and one for folders  If files or folders have spaces in their names then you have to use      cd  USERPROFILE  AppData Local Temp  rem files only for  r   a in     do   echo deleting file    a      if exist    a  del  s  q    a    rem folders only for  D   a in     do   echo deleting folder    a      if exist    a  rmdir  s  q    a

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Try this to test if a file is a directory   FOR  F  delims    I IN   DIR  B  AD  filename  2  gt   amp 1   gt NUL   DO IF   I      File Not Found  ECHO Not a directory   This only will tell you whether a file is NOT a directory  which will also be true if the file doesn t exist  so be sure to check for that first if you need to  The carets     are used to escape the redirect symbols and the file listing output is redirected to NUL to prevent it from being displayed  while the DIR listing s error output is redirected to the output so you can test against DIR s message  File Not Found

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This lists all the files  and only the files  in the current directory   for  r  i in     do echo  i   Also if you run that command in a batch file you need to double the   signs    for  r   i in     do echo   i    thanks  agnul

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1 refers to the first argument passed in and can t be used in an iterator   Try this     echo off for   i in       do echo   i

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To iterate over each file a for loop will work   for   f in  directory path    do   something here    In my case I also wanted the file content  name  etc    This lead to a few issues and I thought my use case might help  Here is a loop that reads info from each   txt  file in a directory and allows you do do something with it  setx for instance     ECHO OFF setlocal enabledelayedexpansion for   f in  directory path   txt  do     set  p val  lt   f   echo  fullname    f    echo  name     nf    echo  contents   val        Limitation  val lt    f will only get the first line of the file

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try this     Example directory set SetupDir C  Users    Loop in the folder with   r  to search in recursive folders    f being a loop   variable  for  r   SetupDir     f in    msi   exe  do set  a counter  1  echo there are  counter  files in your folder   it counts  msi and  exe files in your directory  and in the sub directory   So it also makes the difference between folders and files as executables   Just add an extension   pptx  docx     if you need to filter other files in the loop

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The following code creates a file Named  AllFilesInCurrentDirectorylist txt  in the current Directory  which contains the list of all files  Only Files  in the current Directory  Check it out  dir  b  a-d  gt  AllFilesInCurrentDirectorylist txt

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for  1 in       do echo  1   Try  HELP FOR  in cmd for a full guide  This is the guide for XP commands  http   www ss64 com nt

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There is a subtle difference between running FOR from the command line and from a batch file  In a batch file  you need to put two   characters in front of each variable reference   From a command line   FOR  i IN     DO ECHO  i   From a batch file   FOR   i IN     DO ECHO   i

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It could also use the forfiles command   forfiles  s    and also check if it is a directory   forfiles  p c    s  m      c  cmd  c if  isdir  true echo  file is a directory

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I use the xcopy command with the  L option to get the file names  So if you want to get either a directory or all the files in the subdirectory you could do something like this   for  f  delims     a IN   xcopy  D    pdf  c    l   do echo   a   I just use the c   as the destination because it always exists on windows systems and it is not copying so it does not matter  if you want the subdirectories too just use  s option on the end  You can also use the other switches of xcopy if you need them for other reasons

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I had trouble getting jop s answer to work with an absolute path until I found this reference  https   ss64 com nt for r html  The following example loops through all files in a directory given by the absolute path   For  R C  absoulte path    G IN       do     Echo   G

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I would use vbscript  Windows Scripting Host   because in batch I m sure you cannot tell that a name is a file or a directory   In vbs  it can be something like this   Dim fileSystemObject Set fileSystemObject   CreateObject  Scripting FileSystemObject    Dim mainFolder Set mainFolder   fileSystemObject GetFolder myFolder   Dim files Set files   mainFolder Files  For Each file in files     Next  Dim subFolders Set subFolders   mainFolder SubFolders  For Each folder in subFolders     Next   Check FileSystemObject on MSDN

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Iterate through         files in current dir  for  f in       do  echo  f    subdirs in current dir  for  D  s in       do  echo  s    files in current and all subdirs  for  R  f in       do  echo  f    subdirs in current and all subdirs  for  R  D  s in       do  echo  s   Unfortunately I did not find any way to iterate over files and subdirs at the same time   Just use cygwin with its bash for much more functionality   Apart from this  Did you notice  that the buildin help of MS Windows is a great resource for descriptions of cmd s command line syntax   Also have a look here  http   technet microsoft com en-us library bb490890 aspx

[windows] Iterate all files in a directory using a 'for' loop

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