CODEWITHSUNDEEP
windowsbatch-file
Benjamin Rich
Benjamin Rich

Reputation: 11

BATCH - Use FOR loop on directory files, ordered on Creation date/time

I'm wanting to order files in a directory based on date of creation (or at least, last modified).

I have this code:

FOR /R "directory" %%F IN (*.filetype) DO echo "command" "%%F" > "another\directory\%%~nF.tsv"

...which runs a for loop on files in no particular order (alphabetically?).

What I want to be able to do is:

FOR /R "direcotry\*.filetype" %%F IN ('dir /o-d /b "directory"') DO echo "command" "%%F" > "another\directory\%%~nF.tsv"

The lower code doesn't work, but you may see what I mean. I'm proficient in BASH but not in BATCH

The key is dir /o-d /b "drive:\directory\*.filetype", which orders by creation date (reverse order), and then spits out only the file name -- but I don't know how to work this into a for loop for taking file names, and then running a command on them.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 3330

Answers (2)

Compo
Compo

Reputation: 38623

Due to the limitation mentioned in the comment to the other answer, here is a potential workaround leveraging PowerShell:

@For /F "Delims=" %%A In (
    'Powershell "(GCI "directory" -R *.filetype|Sort CreationTime -Des)|%%{$_.Fullname}"'
) Do @"command" "%%A">"another\directory\%%~nA.tsv"

Obviously adjusting directory, filetype, "command" and another\directory as required

Upvotes: 0

Magoo
Magoo

Reputation: 80023

FOR /F "delims=" %%F IN ('dir /o-d /tc /b /s "directory\*.filetype"') DO echo "command" "%%F" >> "another\directory\%%~nF.tsv"

for/f to process a "file" of text.

"delims=" to turn tokenising off so the entire line of "output" from the dir is assigned.

/tc to use creation date (o/[-]d omitted = alphabetical order from an NTFS drive, storge-order on FAT)

/s to add subdiectories

>> to append to output file.

OR

...DO "command" "%%F"

to execute the command directly without creating the file.

Upvotes: 1

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