Remove space from file name

[greg]

C:\>type  nospace.bat

Code: [Select]

@echo off
echo type oldname.txt
type oldname.txt
sed 's/ //g' oldname.txt > newname.txt
echo type newname.txt
type newname.txt
)
Output:

C:\>nospace.bat

type oldname.txt
good name
File 2 test .txt
File 3 test .txt
type newname.txt
goodname
File2test.txt
File3test.txt

C:\>

[Salmon Trout]

Wow, greg, you're a genius!

I am pleased to award you a...

[Geek-9pm]

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

D:\BATCH>nospace
type oldname.txt
The system cannot find the file specified.
'sed' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
type newname.txt
D:\BATCH>

Does not work as advertised!

[BC_Programmer]

Does not work as advertised!

heh, I was just going to post that...

[greg]

Does not work as advertised!

Thanks for the correction. 
What will work? 
What will  remove the spaces from a file name?

What is correct batch command?

I appreciate the help offered by Geek.

[greg]

Does not work as advertised!

Modifying/Removing a File
Use the following procedure to rename and then modify a file with a space in its name:


Use the Batch RENAME command with a wildcard to replace the space with a legal filename character. For example:
     
rename test?car.txt test_car.txt
                  

This example replaces the space with the underscore character.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/65163

Thanks, for the help Geek. There is always only one correct solution.

[patio]

Thanks, for the help Geek. There is always only one correct solution.

I disagree...
There are always many solutions.

[ghostdog74]

What will  remove the spaces from a file name?

subtle differences between  your post title and what you are actually doing in your batch. you are removing spaces from the contents of the file, not the file name. 

[Salmon Trout]

There is always only one correct solution.

What a very stupid remark.

[Sidewinder]

Use the Batch RENAME command with a wildcard to replace the space with a legal filename character.

Using wildcards in a rename operation can have unintended consequences. There is also the condition where there is more than one space in a file name, not always in the same position.

Not sure why sed is being used. It's a download on XP machines and this can be done with native tools.

Code: [Select]

@echo off
pushd %cd%
cd /d c:\temp
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir /a-d /b') do (
  set inFile=%%a
  set newName=!inFile: =!
  ren "%%a" !newName!
)
popd

Feel free to change the directory name.

[ghostdog74]

Not sure why sed is being used. It's a download on XP machines and this can be done with native tools.

its just a tool to do the job and do it well indeed. having it in your toolbox is no harm, i don't know why downloading stuff is still frowned upon these days. Its just a one time download anyway. (and its just one executable which you can bring anywhere, same as any other resource kit tools from MS).

Code: [Select]

C:\test>dir /b /a-d *file*
another file with spaces.txt
file   with    spaces.txt

C:\test>dir /b /a-d | sed  -n "/ /{h;s/ //g;x;s/.*/mv '&' /;G;s/\n//;p}"
mv 'another file with spaces.txt' anotherfilewithspaces.txt
mv 'file   with    spaces.txt' filewithspaces.txt

C:\test>dir /b /a-d | sed  -n "/ /{h;s/ //g;x;s/.*/mv '&' /;G;s/\n//;p}" |cmd 

you could guess the above doesn't really work (we are dealing with cmd.exe after all, not *nix shell  

[Salmon Trout]

i don't know why downloading stuff is still frowned upon these days.

You do get a number of people on here who appear to be rather un-knowledgeable (or lazy) sysadmins or users in some kind of "corporate" environment who appear to be restricted to using whatever is already installed.

[greg]

Feel free to change the directory name.

Output  for sw post #9


C:\TEMP>dir
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is F4A3-D6B3

 Directory of C:\TEMP

03/21/2010  11:21 AM    <DIR>          .
03/21/2010  11:21 AM    <DIR>          ..
03/21/2010  11:19 AM                 8 another file with spaces.txt
03/21/2010  11:18 AM                 8 file   with    spaces.txt
03/21/2010  11:20 AM                 8 File 2 test .txt
03/21/2010  11:20 AM                 8 File 3 test .txt
03/21/2010  11:21 AM                 8 good name.txt
03/21/2010  11:19 AM                 8 Remove space from file name.txt
               6 File(s)             48 bytes
               2 Dir(s)  297,718,951,936 bytes free

C:\TEMP>cd ..

C:\>

Code: [Select]

type swspaces.bat
@echo off
pushd %cd%
cd /d c:\temp
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir /a-d /b') do (
  set inFile=%%a
  set newName=!inFile: =!
  copy "%%a" !newName!
)
popd
Output:
C:\>swspaces.bat
        1 file(s) copied.
        1 file(s) copied.
        1 file(s) copied.
        1 file(s) copied.
        1 file(s) copied.
        1 file(s) copied.
C:\TEMP>dir
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is F4A3-D6B3

 Directory of C:\TEMP

03/21/2010  11:27 AM    <DIR>          .
03/21/2010  11:27 AM    <DIR>          ..
03/21/2010  11:19 AM                 8 another file with spaces.txt
03/21/2010  11:19 AM                 8 anotherfilewithspaces.txt
03/21/2010  11:18 AM                 8 file   with    spaces.txt
03/21/2010  11:20 AM                 8 File 2 test .txt
03/21/2010  11:20 AM                 8 File 3 test .txt
03/21/2010  11:20 AM                 8 File2test.txt
03/21/2010  11:20 AM                 8 File3test.txt
03/21/2010  11:18 AM                 8 filewithspaces.txt
03/21/2010  11:21 AM                 8 good name.txt
03/21/2010  11:21 AM                 8 goodname.txt
03/21/2010  11:19 AM                 8 Remove space from file name.txt
03/21/2010  11:19 AM                 8 Removespacefromfilename.txt
              12 File(s)             96 bytes
               2 Dir(s)  297,718,951,936 bytes free

C:\TEMP>

[Helpmeh]

Output  for sw post #9

AND...?
You don't need to post the output of other people's codes if it works fine.

[greg]

You don't need to post the output of other people's code if it works fine.

It is very good idea to post output. 
Many readers of these posts do know how to test code.

[greg]

C:\>type nospace.bat

Code: [Select]

@echo off
echo type oldname.txt
type oldname.txt
sed 's/ //g' oldname.txt > newname.txt
echo type newname.txt
type newname.txt
for /f "delims=" %%i in (oldname.txt) do (
echo %%i
call nname.bat  %%i
)
C:\>type nname.bat

Code: [Select]

@echo off
rem Usage: nname.bat  *

echo inside nname.bat

echo %*

for /f "delims=" %%i in (newname.txt) do (
echo inside for %%i
pause
echo copy "c:\%*"  %%i
copy "%*"  %%i
pause
echo another oldname
exit /b
)
C:\>


Output:

C:\>nospace.bat
type oldname.txt
good name.txt
File 2 test .txt
File 3 test .txt
Remove space from file name.txt
another file with spaces.txt
file   with    spaces.txt
type newname.txt
goodname.txt
File2test.txt
File3test.txt
Removespacefromfilename.txt
anotherfilewithspaces.txt
filewithspaces.txt
good name.txt
inside nname.bat
good name.txt
inside for goodname.txt
Press any key to continue . . .
copy "c:\good name.txt"  goodname.txt
        1 file(s) copied.
Press any key to continue . . .
another oldname
File 2 test .txt
inside nname.bat
File 2 test .txt
inside for goodname.txt
Press any key to continue . . .
copy "c:\File 2 test .txt"  goodname.txt
        1 file(s) copied.
Press any key to continue . . .
another oldname
File 3 test .txt
inside nname.bat
File 3 test .txt
inside for goodname.txt
Press any key to continue . . .
copy "c:\File 3 test .txt"  goodname.txt
        1 file(s) copied.
Press any key to continue . . .
another oldname
Remove space from file name.txt
inside nname.bat
Remove space from file name.txt
inside for goodname.txt
Press any key to continue . . .
copy "c:\Remove space from file name.txt"  goodname.txt
        1 file(s) copied.
Press any key to continue . . .
another oldname
another file with spaces.txt
inside nname.bat
another file with spaces.txt
inside for goodname.txt
Press any key to continue . . .
copy "c:\another file with spaces.txt"  goodname.txt
        1 file(s) copied.
Press any key to continue . . .
another oldname
file   with    spaces.txt
inside nname.bat
file   with    spaces.txt
inside for goodname.txt
Press any key to continue . . .
copy "c:\file   with    spaces.txt"  goodname.txt
        1 file(s) copied.
Press any key to continue . . .
another oldname

C:\>

[Sidewinder]

Dearest Bill/Greg/Victor/Victoria/Sybil/Dame Edna or whomever you choose to be today.

Please stop re-posting my code after you have changed or disassembled it. If I had wanted to use copy I would have.

Code: [Select]

@echo off
pushd %cd%
cd /d c:\temp
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir /a-d /b') do (
  set inFile=%%a
  set newName=!inFile: =!
  ren "%%a" !newName!
)
popd

Considering all your experience, I'd have thought you would test the code in a trash directory before running it against live files.  Showing output should be done with caution. It's doubtful any users have the same file names as you and when they don't get the same results may wonder what they did wrong.

In the original post, it should have been made clear that sed is not a part of Windows and a link should have been provided for the download. It should also have pointed out that the way the batch file is written that sed needs to be in a directory on the path for the code to work.

I'm just saying...

[greg]

"Dear Greg,
Please stop re-posting my code after you have changed or disassembled it. If I had wanted to use copy I would have."

Showing the output of your excellent code is added value for new users.
It is much easier to follow the flow of the code when the output is provided.

I will continue to post the output of any code I please.

Don't allow the troublemakers through email distort my intentions or your intentions.

Keep posting. You are the best code man here.

I suspect you are still working in the real world.

[BC_Programmer]

Showing the output of your excellent code is added value for new users.
It is much easier to follow the flow of the code when the output is provided.

I will continue to post the output of any code I please.

Don't allow the troublemakers through email distort my intentions or your intentions.

Keep posting. You are the best code man here.

I suspect you are still working in the real world.

When you say "here is the output from sw's code" make sure it is EXACTLY the same as the code he gave, otherwise, it's a <modified version> of sw's code. that is- state what you changed. Heck, maybe one of these days you might want to actually describe how the batch files work, since, as much as you'd like to say otherwise, a new user to batch doesn't instantly understand how your output translates to function, especially since output is, by definition, full of data specific to your test data.

I suspect you are still working in the real world.

Evidently, by the fact that you so strongly insist on "output" as some sort of measurement metric of code quality/correctness, you aren't- wether this is due to retirement, or other factors is redundant.

While it's true that showing output is certainly one of the many things one can do to display how a piece of code works, it is far from the only thing you should do. pasting a chunk of output from a cmd session lacks one thing: narration. In order to LEARN from the output, the person needs to understand what is happening. the output from cmd doesn't always reflect that, and due to various manglings that occur when the batch is run in with echo on (a reasonable setting when testing/debugging batch files), for example, double percent signs collapse to single percent signs, various other changed regarding delayed expansion (if used) etc.

additionally- the output from a single session only determines the correctness of code in one instance. If I had a batch file:

Code: [Select]

@echo off
echo 2

and claimed it did math, by your logic I could simply show the output!

Code: [Select]

C:\>test.bat 1+1
2

In other words- it proves correctness but only for a single set of input data; and since the input data(various files and folders, in the case of the batch solutions provided here) Is not necessarily the same as what you may have on your machine, it's not usually a very effective one.

Pre-emptive snarky comment "where is BC's code?" or some variant thereof:

VBScript

Code: [Select]

dim fileread
fileread = WScript.Arguments(0)
set FSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set ffile = FSO.GetFile(fileread)
set tstream = ffile.OpenAsTextStream(1,0)
strread = tstream.ReadAll()
strread = Replace(strread," ","")
tstream.close()
set ffile = nothing
set tstream = FSO.CreateTextFile(fileread,True,False)
tstream.Write strread
tstream.close


[Salmon Trout]

troublemakers through email

And the aliens from Neptune causing trouble with their thought beams that direct you to POST THE OUTPUT...

[greg]

And the aliens from Neptune causing trouble with their thought beams that direct you to POST THE OUTPUT...

"Beam me up, Scotty!"

[Geek-9pm]

Now may I please have a turn?
The original poster showed this a small batch file with the null spaces and it looked like an invocation of the UNIX said program to remove all spaces from a text file and replacing with only nothing.
There was no explanation as to quietness was necessary or wet application this might have.  Nor did he provides the contents of the input file.  So we had to guess as to what the objective was.  We were not told why the spaces had to be removed and replaced with just a null character.
A more common and practical thing would be to replace spaces with_is in files that are going to be placed on a Web server that is running an older version of UNIX.
Without that information, we all are just shooting in the dark.
In a Windows system there is no good reason to remove spaces from a final.  It's almost impossible to understand what somebody in state saying if you take out all the spaces.  But if you need to do that, it's quite easy to do that a notepad.  You can tell notepad to find all spaces and replaced it with dolls.  Makes a very interesting document.
Now for demonstration of this the following is a short piece that I have edited with notepad and taken out all the spaces but have left in punctuation showed this capitalization and periods.

Doeseverybodyhererememberthetelevisionc haractercalledSevinofNine?Shewasanandroidthatlookedveryveryhuman. Ifshestillontelevision?Haven'tseenherforawhile.HerearelocalComcastca blewedon'tgetallthechannelswereusedto,butwecanaffordtopaythe
highercostsomaybeweremissingoutonsomeof thenewstaffortheoldstuffthat'soutthereintelevisionwhen.Endoftest.

[greg]

Now may I please have a turn?

The topic is about spaces in filename not the contents of the file.

[BC_Programmer]

The topic is about spaces in filename not the contents of the file.

your Original Post's batch code does otherwise.

[ghostdog74]

The topic is about spaces in filename not the contents of the file.

see reply #7

[greg]

see reply #7

The file used in post one contains a list of old file names with spaces.

The files names listed in the file were changed with sed. The spaces were

removed from the list of filenames. Later the old files were copied to the new filename.


That is not related to Geek removing all the spaces in a text document.

[greg]

subtle differences between  your post title and what you are actually doing in your batch. you are removing spaces from the contents of the file, not the file name. 

The file contained file names.  The spaces were removed from the filenames inside the file.  Later the oldfiles  were copied to a file with a file name without spaces.

QED

[ghostdog74]

The file contained file names.  The spaces were removed from the filenames inside the file.  Later the oldfiles  were copied to a file with a file name without spaces.

QED

QED? no, your first post did not demonstrate the renaming of files, "physically". your first post only shows us removing spaces from the contents of your file which are filenames (and yes i know what you are trying to do) and saving them to another file. But how to do you rename them using the output of sed? a little psuedocode to demo what i mean

Code: [Select]

for each (dir /a-d /b) do (
     newname = echo filename | sed 's/ //g'  <----this is where you remove the spaces....
     ren originalfile newname
)


[rthompson80819]

DoeseverybodyhererememberthetelevisioncharactercalledSevinofNine?Shewasanandroidthatlookedveryveryhuman. Ifshestillontelevision?Haven'tseenherforawhile.

Oh, yeah!  Seven of nine was actually a human that was turned into a partial robot, and then mostly turned back into a human.

She's currently on the show Leverage on TNT.

[patio]

Jeri Ryan...