Forfiles is a powerful Windows command utility that a Windows system Administrator need to know for his daily Administration works. The command is available at C:\Windows\System32 path for the latest versions of Windows operating systems (Windows 7, 2003, 2008 etc). It selects
and executes a command on a file or set of files. This command is useful for
batch processing.
SYNTAX:
forfiles [/p <Path>]
[/m <SearchMask>] [/s] [/c "<Command>"] [/d
[{+|-}][{<Date>|<Days>}]]
Parameter List:
|
Parameter
|
Description
|
|
/p <Path>
|
Specifies the path
from which to start the search. By default, searching starts in the current
working directory.
|
|
/m <SearchMask>
|
Searches files
according to the specified search mask. The default search mask is *.*.
|
|
/s
|
Instructs the forfiles command
to search into subdirectories recursively.
|
|
/c
"<Command>"
|
Runs the specified
command on each file. Command strings should be enclosed in quotation marks.
The default command is "cmd /c echo @file".
|
|
/d
[{+|-}][{<Date>|<Days>}]
|
Selects files with a
last modified date within the specified time frame.
· Selects files with a
last modified date later than or equal to (+) or earlier than or equal
to (-) the specified date, where Date is in the
format MM/DD/YYYY.
· Selects files with a
last modified date later than or equal to (+) the current date plus
the number of days specified, or earlier than or equal to (-) the
current date minus the number of days specified.
· Valid values for Days include
any number in the range 0–32,768. If no sign is specified, + is
used by default.
|
|
/?
|
Displays help at the
command prompt.
|
- Forfiles is
most commonly used in batch files.
- Forfiles /s is
similar to dir /s.
- You can use
the following variables in the command string as specified by the /c command-line
option.
|
Variable
|
Description
|
|
@FILE
|
File name.
|
|
@FNAME
|
File name without
extension.
|
|
@EXT
|
File name extension.
|
|
@PATH
|
Full path of the file.
|
|
@RELPATH
|
Relative path of the
file.
|
|
@ISDIR
|
Evaluates to TRUE if a
file type is a directory. Otherwise, this variable evaluates to FALSE.
|
|
@FSIZE
|
File size, in bytes.
|
|
@FDATE
|
Last modified date
stamp on the file.
|
|
@FTIME
|
Last modified time
stamp on the file.
|
- With forfiles,
you can run a command on or pass arguments to multiple files. For example,
you could run the type command on all files in a tree
with the .txt file name extension. Or you could execute every batch file
(*.bat) on drive C, with the file name "Myinput.txt" as the
first argument.
- With forfiles,
you can do any of the following:
- Select
files by an absolute date or a relative date by using the /d parameter.
- Build an
archive tree of files by using variables such as @FSIZEand @FDATE.
- Differentiate
files from directories by using the @ISDIRvariable.
- Include
special characters in the command line by using the hexadecimal code for
the character, in 0xHH format (for example, 0x09 for a tab).
- Forfiles works
by implementing the recurse subdirectories flag on tools
that are designed to process only a single file.
>To
list all of the batch files on drive C, type:
forfiles /p c:\ /s /m
*.bat /c "cmd /c echo @file is a batch file"
>To
list all of the directories on drive C, type:
forfiles /p c:\ /s /m *.*
/c "cmd /c if @isdir==true echo @file is a directory"
>To
list all of the files in the current directory that are at least one year old,
type:
forfiles /s /m *.* /d -365
/c "cmd /c echo @file is at least one year old."
>To
display the text "File is outdated" for each of the files
in the current directory that are older than January 1, 2007, type:
forfiles /s /m *.* /d -01/01/2007
/c "cmd /c echo @file is outdated."
>To
list the file name extensions of all the files in the current directory in
column format, and add a tab before the extension, type:
forfiles /s /m *.* /c
"cmd /c echo The extension of @file is 0x09@ext"
>Delete all files in the standard TEMP folders
and all their subfolders after 9 days:
forfiles
-p"%SYSTEMROOT%\TEMP" -s -c"cmd /c echo del \"@FILE\"
& sleep 8 & del \"@FILE\"" -d-9
forfiles -p"%TEMP%" -s -c"cmd /c echo del \"@FILE\" & sleep 8 & del \"@FILE\"" -d-9
forfiles -p"%TEMP%" -s -c"cmd /c echo del \"@FILE\" & sleep 8 & del \"@FILE\"" -d-9
>Delete all *.TMP files in the system root (like
C:\WINDOWS) that are older than 9 days:
forfiles
-p"%SYSTEMROOT%" -m*.TMP -c"cmd /c echo del \"@FILE\"
& sleep 8 & del \"@FILE\"" -d-9
>Delete old IIS log files:
forfiles
-p"%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\Logfiles\HttpErr" -c"cmd /c echo del
\"@FILE\" & sleep 8 & del \"@FILE\"" -d-99
forfiles -p"%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\Logfiles\W3Svc1" -c"cmd /c echo del \"@FILE\" & sleep 8 & del \"@FILE\"" -d-99
forfiles -p"%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\Logfiles\SmtpSvc1" -c"cmd /c echo del \"@FILE\" & sleep 8 & del \"@FILE\"" -d-99
forfiles -p"%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\Logfiles\W3Svc1" -c"cmd /c echo del \"@FILE\" & sleep 8 & del \"@FILE\"" -d-99
forfiles -p"%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\Logfiles\SmtpSvc1" -c"cmd /c echo del \"@FILE\" & sleep 8 & del \"@FILE\"" -d-99
