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Number   :  3496
Date     :  2003-01-09
Author   :  Kan Yabumoto
Subject  :  Re: Select files by Directory names
Size(KB) :  3



As to the date testing feature (/DA, /DB, etc.), they apply to
the timestamp of files, not directories, except for the /LTREE
command which selects and displays directories (never files).
Since nearly all XXCOPY commands are designed to work with
files, not directories as the real object of the action,
XXCOPY applies the date testing operation only on files
(this is mostly for avoiding confusion --- else we need
to have a full set of /DA/DB like switches that would work
on directories only).

But, if you are talking about specifying the directory name
which happens to be encoded with a date value, you can use
the macro reference feature to do just that.

E.g., the string, /$yyyy-mm-dd$ will be converted to the
current date (2003-01-08 for today).

---------------------------------------------------------
Note that even though the macro string starts with
the slash, it can be used as the name of the source
or destination directory specifier.

Normally, in XCOPY's command syntax, when an item
starts with a slash is a switch. But with XXCOPY,
a slash that is followed by a dollar sign ($) denotes
the beginning of a macro reference and may be used
anywhere for any purpose within the XXCOPY command line.

This (a bit awkward) syntactic rule is a result of
the very tight character allocation. That is, since
most characters are allowed for the filename (for LFN),
there are only a very few characters that can be used
to denote the beginning of the macro reference.
---------------------------------------------------------

For example, you may say

xxcopy /$yyy-mm-dd$.zip \dest\ /s

will be substituted to

xxcopy 2003-01-08.zip

Or, for Rich's examples,

xxcopy c:\backup\/$yyyy-mm-dd$-1201p\mybackup.zip

will be substituted to

xxcopy c:\backup\2003-01-08-1201p\mybackup.zip

Now, how can we choose a date macro other than today?
You may use /TM+ and /TM- to adjust the
macro value that is not today.

For example,

xxcopy c:\backup\/$yyyy-mm-dd$-1201p\mybackup.zip /tm-4

will give you the following line

xxcopy c:\backup\2003-01-04-1201p\mybackup.zip

For the /TM+ or /TM- parameters, the 
can be specified in days, hours, minutes, or seconds
by adding the D, H, M, or S suffix letter at the end
(D is default and can be omitted).

In conclusion, the macro reference feature can be used
to synthesize either directory name or file name which
is tied to the current date/time (or with an offset
value).

Kan Yabumoto
==========================================================

At 2003-01-08 21:37, you wrote:
>Hello-
>
>Currently, I use some xxcopy batch programs that save files to a
>directory which then renames using winzip to reflect todays date.
>
>example
>2003-01-08-1201p
>
>Each day, the batch runs automatically, creating a new directory with
>the current days date.
>
>I end up with :
>2003-01-08-1201p
>2003-01-09-1201p
>2003-01-10-1201p
>2003-01-11-1201p
>etc
>
>After a period of time, I currently manually delete the older ones.
>
>I would like to automate this process now.
>
>I know xxcopy can distinguish dates using
>/DA:2001-10-30 // on or after
>/DB:2002-12-31 // on or before
>or
>/DA#10 // ten days ago or after
>/DB#7 // seven days or before
>
>as seen on Kan's recent post.
>
>Is there a switch in xxcopy which would work similar on directory
>names as it does on dates? This would allow a set of files not to be
>backed up after __ number of days.
>
>Using the switches for dates does not appear to be working for me,
>which could be the result of being copied nightly to another hard
>drive, c/o xxcopy.
>
>Any suggestions?
>
>Rich



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