Trying to use batch code to parse and archive log files... Errors...

Hi all. I have a quick question about compressing a bunch of log files that have specific years at the end of their file names...

Let's say I have the following set of files needing to be archived by year:
BVC2v2Batch.01042008.log
BVC2v2Batch.02042008.log
BVC2v2Batch.01042009.log
BVC2v2Batch.02042009.log
BVC2v2Batch.03042009.log
BVC2v2Batch.01042010.log
BVC2v2Batch.02042010.log
BVC2v2Batch.01042011.log
...

What I need is to basically place each group prior to 2010 inside their own year's ZIP folder. So for example, everything with the year of 2008 would be in bvc2008.zip, 2009 would be in bvc2009.zip, etc. Each year's log files inside their year's ZIP folder.

So below is where I am right now:

Code:

@ECHO OFF
CLS

:: 
:: If the archives directory doesn't  exist, create it...
:: 
:START
@ECHO "Step 1..."
IF NOT  EXIST archives GOTO CREATE_DIR


::
:: Subroutine to create  archives directory...
::
:CREATE_DIR
@ECHO "Step 2..."
MKDIR  archives


::
:: Initialize main routine...
:: Notes: ~n  excludes the file extension.
::
:INITIALIZE
@ECHO "Step 3..."
FOR  %%G IN (*.log) DO (CALL :PARSE %%~nG)
PAUSE


::
::  Parse filename...
:: Notes: This parses names based on the number of  characters the file name has. The first IF looks for 20-counts.
::         The next IF looks for 24-counts.
::
:PARSE
SET filename=%1
IF  %filename:~0,20% == %filename% (
   @ECHO %filename:~16,4%
)
IF  %filename:~0,24% == %filename% (
   @ECHO %filename:~20,4%
)
EXIT  /b

When the above is executed, it looks for an "archives" folder. If it's not there, it tries to create it as a place to store the yearly ZIP archives (notice the years are in bold in the above list of example files). Beyond that, it just goes through steps of reading the file names and parsing the name itself if and only if they're of type *.log. As you can see, I'm still working on this but wanted to understand why "ECHO is off." keeps repeated during runtime... I thought I had it set to OFF. It has me stumped. Why does it do this?

Any help with this is appreciated.

Thanks for the welcome, Dwarf. :.)

And yes, the file names are the same length and structure.

strollin, I tried what you said but it still repeated "Echo is off."

Excellent, strollin! That did the trick! :)

Okay guys, I'm back...

Unfortunately, I came up with the bright idea to improve the readability with the code, and of course, I broke it... Any ideas why? (See below.)

Also, why does it immediately exit from the entire window instead of simply stopping or displaying the last value it encounters before faulting? (In other words, how the heck does one debug / test something like this when you can't even get the window to stay open despite having pause statements and purposely created structures meant to assist in assessing a given issue at any one time?)

Code:

@ECHO OFF
CLS

IF NOT EXIST archives (
  MKDIR archives
  GOTO start
) ELSE (
  :start
    FOR %%G IN (*.log) DO (call :PARSE %%~nG)
  :parse
    SET filename=%1
    IF  %filename:~0,20% == %filename% goto found20
    IF  %filename:~0,24% == %filename% goto found24 
  :found20
    ECHO %filename:~16,4%
    goto bye
  :found24
    ECHO %filename:~20,4%
    goto bye
)

:bye
EXIT /b
PAUSE

Any light you can shine on this is appreciated. Obviously, I don't know something about what I thought I was doing and if you can help this new guy out, it would really be appreciated.

Yep, works for me too. :)

Am I crazy for trying to use this as a batch way of backing-up files through the vanilla ZIP feature of Windows (specially, Windows Server 2003)?

The original intent behind all this was that I was in need of a way to back up a bunch of log files based on year with each year equating to its own ZIP file archive, but if batch doesn't even support basic IF/ELSE constructs, then it's making me wonder what else it probably doesn't support...

Thoughts?