Microsoft DOS forfiles command
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About forfiles
Availability
Syntax
Examples
About forfiles
Selects a file (or set of files) and executes a command on that file. This
is helpful for batch jobs.
Availability
The forfiles command is an external command and is available in the below Microsoft operating systems.
Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2008
Windows Vista
Windows 7
Syntax
FORFILES [/P pathname] [/M searchmask] [/S] [/C command] [/D [+ | -] {MM/dd/yyyy
| dd}]
| /P pathname |
Indicates the path to start
searching. The default folder is the current working directory (.). |
| /M searchmask |
Searches files according to a
searchmask. The default searchmask is '*' . |
| /S |
Instructs forfiles to recurse into subdirectories. Like "DIR /S". |
| /C
command |
Indicates the command to execute for each file. Command strings
should be wrapped in double
quotes.
The default command is
"cmd /c echo @file".
The following variables can be used in
the command string:
@file - returns the name of the file.
@fname - returns the file name without extension.
@ext - returns
only the extension of the file.
@path - returns the full path of
the file.
@relpath - returns the relative path of the file.
@isdir
- returns "TRUE" if a file type is
a directory, and "FALSE" for
files.
@fsize - returns the size of the file in bytes.
@fdate
- returns the last modified date of the file.
@ftime - returns
the last modified time of the file.
To include special
characters in the command line, use the hexadecimal code for the
character in 0xHH format (ex. 0x09 for tab). Internal CMD.exe
commands should be preceded with "cmd /c". |
| /D
date |
Selects files with a last modified date greater than or equal to
(+), or less than or equal to (-), the specified date using the "MM/dd/yyyy"
format; or selects files with a last modified date greater than or
equal to (+) the current date plus "dd" days, or less than or equal
to (-) the current date minus "dd" days. A valid "dd" number of days
can be any number in the range of 0 - 32768. "+" is taken as default
sign if not specified. |
Examples
forfiles /d -30
In this next example the forfiles command would list any file
that is older than 30 days.
forfiles /p . /m *.zip /c "cmd /c move @file @fname"
Next, this command will remove the extensions of all files
that end with .zip. |
