rich pasco

XCOPY is a powerful utility with many options, but there are
two things I can't figure out how to do.

First:
Is there an XCOPY option to copy from folder 1 to folder 2 just
those files which do not already have a namesake in folder 2?
This would be the dual of /U which copies just those files
which do already exist. I am currently using /-Y and holding
down the "n" key, but there must be a better way.

Second:
Is there an XCOPY option to delete from folder 2 those files
which do not exist in folder 1? I am currently using this:

pushd folder2
for %%f in (*.*) do if not exist folder1\%%f del %%f
popd

Can anyone suggest a better way?

Thanks in advance,

- Rich

todd vargo

You could download xxcopy and use it's /clone feature.

Or... You could use this.

xcopy folder1\ folder2\ /d /y
for %%f in (folder2\*.*) do if not exist folder1\%%~nxf del %%f

--
Todd Vargo
(Post questions to group only. Remove "z" to email personal messages)

herb martin

I have a file of "n"s -- 10,000 lines of "n"s -- called n.txt in my
batch file directory on each machine.

xcopy blah blah <c:\bat\n.txt

You can use an editor to cut and past the n's or just use a numeric for..in..do loop.


I do this one basically this way. If it gets more complicated then
I write a Perl script to do it -- usually by writing the batch file
that will do the work even though Perl can do it directly, or can
callout to command utilities.

rich pasco

LOL! That's cute. :-)

Thanks for the tip, I think. :-)

- Rich

rich pasco

Who publishes xxcopy? I really wanted to do it with just Windows tools.


That will copy all files, including replacing those which exist
with an older date. In my case, I don't want to replace existing
files, just leave them alone and copy only files *not* having a
namesake in the target folder.


How is that better than what I wrote?

- Rich

herb martin

There needs to be a switch for NO. (/N is taken and /-Y is
needed for environment variable default overriding).


--
Herb Martin, MCSE, MVP
http://www.LearnQuick.Com
(phone on web site)

todd vargo

Google is your friend.


Sorry, i misunderstood the reason you used the /-y.

I don't recall stating it was "better", but it is my preferred method.
Relying on changing to another directory which may have been renamed, moved
or deleted would result in processing files in whatever folder happened to
be current. My method is explicit as to what should be processed. These two
lines should do what you wanted.

for %%f in (folder1\*.*) do if not exist folder2\%%~nxf xcopy %%f folder2\
for %%f in (folder2\*.*) do if not exist folder1\%%~nxf del %%f

--
Todd Vargo
(Post questions to group only. Remove "z" to email personal messages)

olaf engelke [mvp windows server]

Hi Rich,


do you mean also not overwrite older files or overwrite them only, if newer?


This definitively would be a task for robocopy, which can be found in the
Windows Server 2003 Resource kit tools here:
http://thesource.ofallevil.com/downl...displaylang=en
Also not overwriting existing files, if they are newer or same date as the
files from source directory.
Best greetings from Germany
Olaf

al dunbar

Then you could try Robocopy, which can be found in various resource kits,
and may be installed by default in some more recent versions of windows.

/Al

rich pasco

For a short while I thought that an even better way would be to
pipe into xcopy the standard output of a program (call it n.exe)
which writes an infinite stream of lines of n's. That way, there
would always be one when needed.

n.exe | xcopy blah blah

Then I remembered that Windows doesn't implement true pipes, but
instead waits for the source program to complete before starting
the destination.

So my solution is no better than Herb's (in fact worse, as it has
to regenerate the file of n's each time).

- Rich