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Number   :  9120
Date     :  2004-11-02
Author   :  Peter Innes
Subject  :  Re: Copy to new Filename or Directory
Size(KB) :  3


Thanks very much for your suggestions. I will take up one of these.

Peter

John Zeman  wrote:

--- In xxcopy@yahoogroups.com, Peter Innes  
wrote:
> Thanks very much for your swift reply. xxcopy seemed to be so 
powerful that it is a great surprise to me that it doesn't have such 
an obvious feature that even DOS xcopy had!
> 
> I'm trying to copy a file to a date-stamped filename. Over time a 
series of date-stamped copies of the file from at different times 
will build up. It's part of a backup strategy.
> 
> I may have to copy the file somewhere then rename.
> 
> Thanks,
> Peter 



As Garry mentioned, in general xxcopy deliberately does not allow 
files to be copied and renamed even though xcopy does. To learn why, 
you can read technical bulletin #2 at:

http://www.xxcopy.com/xxcopy02.htm

I don't know if this would be satisfactory to you, but an easy way to 
resolve the "name by date" problem could be to leave the file names 
as they are, but copy them to a date stamped directory in the 
destination which xxcopy will do. For example:

xxcopy "C:\SRC\" "D:\DST\/$YYYY-MM-DD$\" 

The above automatically create a destination directory named 

D:\DST\2004-11-02\

(which is today's date) and then copies the source files to it. My 
example is just an example, there are many other possible ways to use 
the current (and even not current) date/time in a destination 
directory name. For more information on that you can read technical 
bulletin #24 at:

http://www.xxcopy.com/xxcopy24.htm

The advantage of copying to a date stamped directory as opposed to 
renaming the files according to the current date is at least 
twofold. One, the possibility of name clashes when the files are 
copied is almost virtually eliminated. Two, the files can be 
recognized for what they are because they retain the original name.

However if you really wish to rename the files according to the 
current date, one way would be to xxcopy the files to the destination 
as you normally would, then run a script to rename them by date. For 
example, the below would append the current date to each file name 
(works with NT, 2000, or XP systems only)


@echo off
:: SET DIRECTORY WHOSE FILES WILL BE RENAMED BY DATE
pushd D:\DST\FOLDER

:: Get current date. Note this is dependent
:: upon the date format in the machine being
:: DDD MM/DD/YYYY
:: if not, adjust tokens in next line accordingly.

for /f "tokens=2-4 delims=/ " %%f in ('date /t') do (
set MM=%%f& set DD=%%g& set YYYY=%%h
)

set TODAY= %YYYY%-%MM%-%DD%

for /f "delims=*" %%a in ('dir "*.*" /b /s /a:-d') do (
ECHO ren "%%~dpnxa" "%%~na%TODAY%%%~xa"
)

popd



Note 1: The above will not actually rename anything unless you remove 
the ECHO in the line:

ECHO ren "%%~dpnxa" "%%~na%Z%%%~xa"

Note 2: To not rename files in the subdirectories, remove the /s 
between /b and /a:-d

Note 3: The above will not rename hidden or system files (you'll 
see "The system cannot find the file specified" errors if there are 
any hidden or system files).

John






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