Chapter 7 - Copying, moving, renaming, and deleting files.

Chapter 7 - Copying, moving, renaming, and deleting files.

 
we will discuss the basics of managing your files from the command line.

 

COPYING FILES

 

One of the most useful features of the modern PC is the ability to swiftly copy files from one location to another. Practically every computing device has the ability to copy files. The Windows operating system and the Command Prompt are no different. The basic command for copying files from the Command Prompt is the COPY command. If you wanted to use COPY to copy a file called test.txt to the root directory of a USB flash drive assigned the letter J:

COPY test.txt J:\

The command will create a copy of test.txt in the root directory of the J drive.

Like most Command Prompt commands, COPY assumes that you will be copying files from the working directory, and looks there first to find the filenames you specify. However, you can also use COPY with absolute file paths. If test.txt were in the Users directory of the C drive, you would use this command to copy it to J:

COPY C:\Users\test.txt J:\

But what happens if there's already a file named "test.txt" in the root directory of J? If there's already a file there, COPY will pause for your confirmation before continuing:

Overwrite J:\test.txt? (Yes/No/All):

If you hit Y to continue, COPY will overwrite the file. Hit N, and COPY will leave the file intact. (The All option is used when copying multiple files at once - hit A, and COPY will not ask you again if you want to overwrite the files for the remainder of the copying job.)

You can override this prompt with the /Y switch:

COPY C:\Users\test.txt J:\ /Y

With the /Y switch, COPY will overwrite any files without first prompting you to continue. Needless to say, you should be careful using the /Y switch, since you might accidentally overwrite valuable data. 

Like most other file manipulation commands, COPY works with the wildcard characters. If you wished to copy every file with the "txt" extension in the Users directory to J:\, you would use this command:

COPY C:\Users\*.txt J:\

The COPY command is easy to use, but it is fairly limited, and has only a few available options. For a more powerful copying utility, Command Prompt offers the XCOPY utility. On the surface, XCOPY works just like COPY - you can copy individual files, use wildcards, and so forth. XCOPY's main advantage over COPY is that it allows you to copy subdirectories. In other words, you can copy entire branches of the directory tree from one location to another with the XCOPY command. In this example, XCOPY will copy the entire contents of your C:\Users directory, including all subdirectories, to the USB drive at J:

XCOPY C:\Users\*.* J:\ /S /E

You will notice the use of two switches, /S and /E. The /S switch tells XCOPY to copy all the subdirectories in the C:\Users directory. The /E switch tells XCOPY to copy the subdirectories even if they are empty. 

Here are a few more useful switches XCOPY offers:

-/M copies only files with the Archive attribute enabled, and then switches it off. This essentially lets you use XCOPY as a crude backup utility. 

-/D:m-d-y only copies files changed after the specified date (for instance, for December 27th, 2010, the command would look like this: XCOPY *.* /D:12-27-2010).

-/C tells XCOPY to continue the copy operation even if there are errors. This is useful when copying large numbers of files from a failing or damaged disk - if you're trying to copy off, say, 85 gigabytes worth of music files, it is quite irritating to have the operation fail two gigabytes into the job due to an error.

-/H tells XCOPY to copy files with the System and Hidden attributes, as well. 

-/R overwrites any files with the Read-only attribute in the destination directory that share same name as the copied files. You should be careful with this option, since it can cause data loss. 

-/N copies the files using their 8.3 filenames.

-/Y works the same as the /Y switch with the COPY command, and tells XCOPY to overwrite any files of the same name without prompting you first.

The COPY command is good enough for quickly copying small groups of files, but for heavy-duty file copying, you'll want to use the XCOPY command. 

 

MOVING FILES

 

There are two ways to move a file. You could copy the file to its new destination, and then delete the original source file. This involves unnecessary work. Using the MOVE command, you can move a file from its original location to a new one, all in a single command. If you wanted to move the test.txt file to a USB flash drive at J:

MOVE test.txt J:\

This will move test.txt to the root directory of J, while removing the original source file. 

Like COPY and XCOPY, the MOVE command supports the use of wildcard characters. This command will move every file in the current directory to the root directory of J:

MOVE *.* J:\

 

RENAMING FILES

 

Very often you will need to change the name of a file or of a directory. Renaming a file is quite simple, thanks to the REN command. In the following example, you use the REN command to change the name of test.txt to example.txt:

REN test.txt example.txt

Likewise, you can also use the REN command to change the name of directories. For instance, if you wanted to change the name of the C:\test directory to C:\finished, you would use this command:

REN C:\test C:\finished

The REN command has a few caveats, though. The renamed file has to stay in the same location as it started - you cannot use the REN command like the MOVE command, in other words. In addition, you cannot rename a file to match the name of a file that already exists in the current directory - you cannot use REN like the COPY or the XCOPY commands to overwrite a file.

 

DELETING FILES

 

Deleting files from Windows Explorer is simple enough - you simply drag and drop them to the Recycle Bin icon on your desktop. This works well enough for one or two files, but becomes quite cumbersome if you want to delete, say, one hundred files at once. Especially if the files are mixed with other files that you want to keep - you'll need to cumbersomely scroll down while CTRL-clicking the files, or drag them one by one to the Recycle Bin. 

Either way is a waste of time, especially when you can delete files quickly and easily from the Command Prompt.

The command to delete files (and directories - we'll discuss that later) is the DEL command. If you wanted to delete a file named test.txt in the current directory, you would use this command:

DEL test.txt

The test.txt file will be deleted in short order.

If, however, the file has the Read-only attribute, you'll get an error message that says "Access is denied." If this happens, you have two options. You can use the ATTRIB command to revoke its Read-only status and then delete the file. Alternatively, you can use the DEL command with the /F switch:

DEL /F test.txt

The /F switch tells DEL to delete the file, even if it has the Read-only attribute. You should of course take considerable care when using the /F switch, since you might inadvertently delete important files. 

If you don't have NTFS permissions to the file, you can't delete it. You'll need to first alter the permissions so you have at least the Modify permission, or log onto your Windows system using an account (such as administrator account) that has the permissions. 

Like XCOPY and COPY, the DEL command also works with the wildcard characters. Using DEL with the wildcard characters makes the command extremely powerful (and extremely dangerous). For example, if you have a series of files named data1.doc, data2.doc, and so forth, you could delete them all at once using the question mark wildcard character:

DEL data?.doc

This will delete every file in the current directory hat begins with data, has an extension of "doc", and has a single character after the "data" part of the filename. (It works much like the previous example with the COPY command, except instead of copying the files, DEL deletes them.) 

Using the asterisk wildcard character with DEL creates an even more powerful command:

DEL *.doc

This command will delete every single file with the "doc" extension in the current directory. If you use it conjunction with the /F switch, it will wipe out files with the Read-only attribute. 

If you remember what we've discussed about the asterisk wildcard character, then you know what this command will do:

DEL *.*

This will delete every single file in the current directory. Needless to say, you should only use this command when you are absolutely certain that you want to delete every single one of the files in the current directory. 

Like XCOPY, the DEL command isn't confined to working in a single directory at a time. This command will tell DEL to delete every file with the "doc" extension in the current directory, and every file with the "doc" extension in the current directory's subdirectories:

DEL *.doc /s

And to take it one step further, this command will delete all the files in the current directory, and all files in all the current directory's subdirectories as well:

DEL *.* /s

Needless to say, you should exercise great caution when using this command.

Like XCOPY and COPY, DEL also works with absolute file paths. For instance, if you wanted to delete every file in the C:\temp directory, you would employ this command:

DEL C:\temp\*.*

Using DEL, you can delete files from the Command Prompt more efficiently than through Windows Explorer. Just use it carefully - you can accidentally wipe out important data.