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Message-ID:	<003701c18812$8f19b4e0$c03dfea9@atlantis>
From:	"Matthias Paul" <Matthias DOT Paul AT post DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>
To:	<opendos AT delorie DOT com>
References:	<3C1C6E72 DOT 2090502 AT drdos DOT org>
Subject:	Re: [OT] ren
Date:	Tue, 18 Dec 2001 23:19:28 +0100
Organization:	University of Technology, RWTH Aachen, Germany
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Reply-To:	opendos AT delorie DOT com

On 2001-12-16, Florian Xaver wrote:

> I would need a rename program which:
> 
> - supports lfn (i use lfndos)
> - can rename a file list: e.g. ren *.mp3 "temp-*.mp3"
> - Mabe can do this also in subdirectories

While the above proposed syntax probably won´t give you the expected
results but instead will overwrite the first few characters of the
destination files with "temp-" instead of pre-pending it to the filename,
you can do this with 4DOS (http://www.jpsoft.com).

Assuming that you don´t want to rename files which are already named
"temp-*.mp3" to "temp-temp-*.mp3", the following should work (untested):

 FOR /[!temp-*] %%x IN ("*.mp3") DO REN "%%x" "temp-%%x"

(If you don´t want to use 4DOS) you should be able to use
MS-DOS 7.0+ COMMAND.COM for this as well:

 IF EXIST tmpdir\nul GOTO error
 MD tmpdir
 FOR %%x IN (*.mp3) DO REN %%x .\tmpdir\temp-%%x
 REN .\tmpdir\*.* .
 RD tmpdir
 :error

Unfortunately, this will not work as expected under DR-DOS 7.02+
COMMAND.COM, because DR-DOS COMMAND.COM does not support the
LFNFOR command yet. So, it will prepend the filenames in the
destination with "temp-", however, it will usually apply this
to the short filenames, not the long ones... It would work
reliable if you were using short filenames, only.

Under MS-DOS 7.0+ COMMAND.COM and 4DOS 7.0+ you should be able
to control the behaviour of the FOR command with the LFNFOR
command. Welcome to the odd world of Microsoft VFAT LFN
design implications...

The advantage of the second approach is that this will also work
reliable for files which already match "temp-*.mp3" on entry.
And by moving the files to a different directory you can be
sure that you won´t enter any infinite loops. The disadvantage
is that you must have user rights to create and delete a directory
on the current volume, which, however, shouldn´t be an issue unless
you´re in a network.

Greetings,

 Matthias

-- 

<mailto:Matthias DOT Paul AT post DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>; <mailto:mpaul AT drdos DOT org>
http://www.uni-bonn.de/~uzs180/mpdokeng.html; http://mpaul.drdos.org

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