Remove last seven characters from multiple filenames?

sibbil said:

Hey JDobbsy1987, kind of sloppy/clunky

It is a little clunky at the moment but as i said in earlier posts, these commands were just to get the rename command to work correctly within the command window (not a batch file), now i have that all i need to do is create a new command with a for loop that will replace the previous commands mentioned in this thread. once i have done that it will not be clunky... just a standard batch file.

sibbil said:

instead of renaming with the same extension go with something different, that way you could run it on a folder full of files. When it's done you run code to correct the extension.

Why run a 2nd command to correct the file extension when the first command can do it at the same time, we know that files that need renaming are PDF's?

That is not the issue, this issue is just putting the rename command in a loop... nothing to do with the file extension.

I have nearly got the for loop working by the way

jdcrutch said:

was only lopping off the last six digits. I don't know what the ~0,-11 arguments mean (assuming they're arguments), but I took a wild stab and changed -11 to -12. Now here's what I get:

C:\Temp\test>renpdf.bat
C:\Temp\test>for %i in (*.pdf) do (set fName="%i")
C:\Temp\test>(set fName="EY 000000302768049.pdf")
C:\Temp\test>ren "EY 000000302768049.pdf" "EY 00000030.pdf"

which is exactly what I want. I don't know how it works, but it works. Thanks again, JDobbsy1987! Now for the loop!

Edit: a little research tells me that the ~0,-12 bit is a modifier that strips the last n characters (in this case, n=12) from a string. I guess I had to add a character to JDobbsy1987's -11 in order to account for the quotation mark I'd added, though I'm not sure why that doesn't let the space cause problems again. At any rate, it seems to work.

I'm glad this is what you are after, I nearly have the loop working, hopefully i will have this back to you by tomorrow evening (well this evening as it's past midnight )

You are correct about the below code

Code:

ren %fName% %fName:~0,-11%.txt

~0 = Remove the first n letters (we don't want to remove any hence 0)
,-11 = Remove the last n letters

Regards,
JDobbsy1987

sibbil said:

Hey JDobbsy1987,

Sorry I wasn't clear, I meant my addition would be sloppy/clunky, not yours.

Everytime I've gone and looked at batch files I've written over the years, I think "you know, I really could wipe out a few lines here and there and be more efficient just by modifying a couple other lines".

Ah, I misunderstood sorry , i do find that i end up re-writing old batch files reducing them from 20 lines down to 10 as i pick up more over time.

OK Jim...

I have now got the script to work, 2 batch files are required for it.
All the .PDF's will need to be put in a folder for it to work (obviously if you can change the script to look in different folders then go for it

Please put a copy of a few PDF's into a folder to test the following:

First you need to create the 2 batch files:

Make batch file called "RunMe.bat" with the following code:

Code:

dir /b | find "pdf" /i > temp.log
 set tempvar=
 for /f "tokens=1-2 delims=." /f %%A in (temp.log) do (
 rename_file.bat %%A %%B
 )

 del temp.log

Now create a batch file called "ReName_File.bat" with the following code:

Code:

set fName=%1
 ren %fName%.%2 %fName:~0,-7%.%2

Put the 2 batch files in the folder with the test pdf's and then double click the RunMe.bat

It may take a second but all the files should now have the last 7 digits removed?

Please advise how you get on.
Sorry it has taken so long to get to the bottom of it

Regards,
JDobbsy1987

Hi Jim,

It's not a problem, the reason i have 2 batch files is it's to do with how loops deal with variables and the order the commands are run in the stack (it may be possible to get it to run in a single batch file but much easier {for me} to get it split over 2 although I'm not actually sure it is possible to do this is a single command/batch file due to the rename variable).

You don't need to specify the file extension in the script as the for loop uses a delimiting character to split it into two variables (%%A and %%B) with A being the file name, and B being the extension.

Both of those are then loaded into rename_file.bat as %1 and %2 respectively. It works this way because rename_file.bat is called for each loop, and when it finished its two lines, it closes, and therefore removes the fName variable so it can be reused by the next loop.

I hope his helps understand it a little more.

Regards,
JDobbsy1987