xmove - Regex enabled file move command

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Introduction

Who haven't gone through the job of renaming a bunch of files ? I know I have for sure and up to this day, it was quite a chore ... Basically, I would fire up Textpad and make a batch file using its built-in Regular Expressions capabilities.

I did grow tired of always doing basically the same procedure over and over so I wrote this nifty utility in my spare time. You can think of it as the console "move" command on steroid, having all the power of regular expressions at its disposal.

With this tool, you can use a source Regex to specify which files to move/rename and then use any captures you made to specify the destination or new filenames.

This lets you easily rename all your mp3 in a standard way for example, or change the naming convention of a whole archive on your local intranet, etc.

It's up to you to provide the source and destination patterns : there are no built-in regex macros that you can use, except for changing case of filenames (to lower case, UPPER CASE, Proper Case and Sentence case), but it would be easy to add them if you feel so.

As a bonus, you will get two useful classes :

• ArgumentParser : Full featured argument parsing class, supporting switches, name/value pairs, flags and solo values and implementing a cool idea thought out by Ray Hayes in this article.
  Update : I dedicated a whole article to this class which you can view here.
  
• FindFile : File/directory searching class supporting both normal Regex and wildcard searches and using delegates to feed results

Finally, every single line of text is put in a resource file so you can easily translate it in your language (mine is French, but I didn't bother to do it :p).

IMPORTANT

I STRONGLY encourage you to always use the /batch=filename option. Even if my code would be without defect (!), maybe your regex pattern has some ! Regular expressions are beasts not be handled carelessly ... Take my word for it :)

Should you find a bug or an annoyance or even a feature you would like, drop me a line and I will do my best. If you can do it, that's even better !

Documentation

The following is the help displayed by default by the application.

xmove - Regex enabled move command by S�bastien Lorion, 2003
Moves files or directories using regular expression filters.

Syntax :

xmove [options] [source root] <source regex pattern> [dest root] <dest regex pattern>

If [source root] is not specified, the current directory will be used.
If [dest root] is not specified, it will have the same value as [source root].

By default, xmove operates on any files but not on directories (/aF).

Options :

/batch=<filename> : Makes a batch file instead of moving immediately.

/case=<case option> : Changes the case of the destination filename as specified by option

• lower : lower case
• upper : UPPER CASE
• proper : Proper Case
• sentence: Sentence case

/i : Ignores case
/r : Operates recursively (if specified, you cannot move directories (excludes /aA and /ad options))
/t : Test mode
/yc : Suppresses confirmation of each move operation
/yo : Suppresses confirmation of overwriting an existing file

/a[A|F|a|c|d|e|h|n|o|r|s|t] : Limits move operation to files with specific attribute(s)

• A : Moves everything (including directories)
• F : Moves any files
• a : Moves only files with "archive" attribute
• c : Moves only files with "compressed" attribute
• d : Moves only files with "directory" attribute
• e : Moves only files with "encrypted" attribute
• h : Moves only files with "hidden" attribute
• n : Moves only files with "normal" attribute
• o : Moves only files with "offline" attribute
• r : Moves only files with "read-only" attribute
• s : Moves only files with "system" attribute
• t : Moves only files with "temporary" attribute

You can specify more than one file attributes at the same time (e.g. /aacehnorst which is the same as /aF).

Examples :

• Replaces all "_" characters by spaces in filenames :
  
  xmove "_" " "
• Recursively changes case to "sentence" case for all files with "normal" and/or "archive" attributes :
  
  xmove /aan /r /case=sentence ".+" "$&"

Using the code

There is no magic involved here nor some incredibly hard stuff, so the code should speak by itself :) It's well documented and is quite flowing, but feel free to ask questions if the need arise !

I dedicated a whole article to cover ArgumentParser class.

Updates

• 2003-08-20 : Fixed some minor bugs here and there.
• 2003-08-26 : Completely rewrote ArgumentParser parsing class which was getting a bit convoluted.
• 2003-08-26 : Forgot to allow empty arguments (which must be passed as "").
• 2003-08-29 : Further enhanced ArgumentParser class with the idea of Ray Hayes in this article. I intend to publish this class in a new article.
• 2003-08-30 : Improved performance of replace and corrected a bug preventing Ignore Case option to work.
• 2003-08-31 : Added support for /arg=[false/true] or /arg=[0/1] (considered as switches)
• 2003-09-01 : ArgumentParser class got his own article here.

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Saved me an hour or two plus testing ;) patnsnaudy 22:17 4 Jun '08   Thanks a lot! I downloaded xmove and it just worked for renaming a few files (300+). I just needed simple find and replace in file name and it worked for me. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Saved me an hour or two plus testing ;) Sebastien Lorion 22:27 4 Jun '08   Your welcome. This simple utility has saved me a *lot* of time too and I am still using it on a regular basis. Sébastien Intelligence shared is intelligence squared. Homepage : http://sebastienlorion.com Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Very Close... Stryder1 13:22 3 Jul '06   This is very close to a project I was prepairing to embark on. I need to move/sort/catalog many different report files into folders which include the date on them. I suppose this could all be done with XMove in a batch file. And I will likely use it until I reach the end it's potential. Thank you! My original idea was to make a line-by-line text file manipulator. A filter file would be needed that contained; a trigger regular expression, a String.Format expression and any objects needed for the String.Format (something like :date: for various things like the file date, current date, any regular expression captures.) Each line of the input file would then be processed against this filter file and output to a file at the first match. To use this (hypothetical) file manipulator to sort my files I would do something like this: Dir /S /B c:\directory\* > input.txt LineMunger input.txt output.bat filter.txt output.bat Where the filter.txt file would look something like this to add the date to all the files: "(.*)(\..*)", "REN {0} {1}{2:yyyyMMdd}{3}", :original:, $1, :date:, $2 Nathan Hartley http://iLothlorien.com Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Very Close... Sébastien Lorion 16:46 3 Jul '06   I am glad this tool has still not lost its usefulness Thank you for your comment! Sébastien Intelligence shared is intelligence squared. Homepage : http://sebastienlorion.com Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink The Application Failed To Initialize Properly (0xc0000135) armega 11:59 7 Feb '06   I get the following error when tring to run the precompiled exe in both the zip files... The Application Failed To Initialize Properly (0xc0000135). Click The OK To Terminate The Application. Any ideas why.. I type this at the command prompt... "c:\>xmove /?" Armega Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 1.33/5 (3 votes) Re: The Application Failed To Initialize Properly (0xc0000135) Jerry Jeremiah 22:45 25 Nov '07   I think you need the .NET runtime installed. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Option to import batch list Jafin 11:46 6 Dec '05   Excellent tool. I'm currently using it to sort a bunch of incoming files via a *long* list of xmove commands processed via a batch "for" job. This is taking considerable time. I hope to be able to one day modify xmove to import a batch list of 'move' actions and process them quicker than the poor old batch file is. (The basic format i have now is 'regex pattern|destination subfolder' and the batch file runs a cmd similar to: ::Xmove Parameters set params=/ad /i /yc ::Source Folder set srcdir=.\ FOR /F "eol=; tokens=1,2 delims=|" %%i in (C:\utils\xmovebatch.txt) do XMOVE %params% %srcdir% "%%i" "%dstdir%\%%j" %dstmatch% If anyone else has already done a modification directly to xmove I'd love them to post code. 5 points to the author for such a cool tool. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Added ability to move files to a common directory pjbm 17:52 10 Jul '05   Hi Sébastien, Basically we have feeds coming in from third parties along with images (car adverts) and we do one thing with the images and process the XML differently. I had a need for a tool that could climb through a directory structure and pull out all the XML files and copy them to a common location. I can drop you the code if you like but I also added something to the Directory builder as I am not very good at regular expressions and wanted to preserve the file name of the XML. Cheers Paul Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 2.00/5 (1 vote) Re: Added ability to move files to a common directory Sébastien Lorion 21:13 10 Jul '05   Maybe the xcopy command would be more appropriate then ? Simply type "xcopy /?" at the command prompt. Thanks for the comment ! Sébastien Intelligence shared is intelligence squared. Homepage : http://sebastienlorion.com Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Added case change per matching groups johnhamm 22:29 1 Jul '05   I love xmove. Recently I have had the need to rename files by modifying the case of the individual matching groups instead of the whole filename. Example: J.d. Salinger -> J.D. Salinger The command: xmove "(.*[A-Z]\.)([a-z])(\..*)" "$1$2$3" /paramupper=2 Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Added case change per matching groups Sébastien Lorion 23:19 1 Jul '05   Thanks for the comment! It is really nice to see something I wrote in 2003 still being used today! Hey, I do use it too Could you share the source code for the modification you did? I think some users might need it too Sébastien Intelligence shared is intelligence squared. Homepage : http://sebastienlorion.com Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink i also give you 5 only_boby 7:08 22 Jun '04   hello dear, i mail you but u did not respond now i mail u from code project site. i see ur website it is very good, i like it very much especially ur cat and also the picuture of birds. so i want to make friendship with you, i hope you did not reject me, see my detail from my article. http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/graphprogressbar.asp only_boby Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink non-regex searches Kirk Hodges 3:24 1 Jun '04   Nice article! Thanks for the contribution! I used your FindFile class in one of my apps. I found I had to make the following change to the basic non-regex search function to get it to work when using the AnyFile SearchAttribute. private static void Search(String basePath, String searchPattern, SearchAttributes searchAttributes, Int32 maxDepth, Int32 maxResults, FoundAFile callback, Int32 nestedLevel, ref Int32 resultCount) { try { bool isCanceled = false; String dirSearchPattern = searchPattern; if (searchAttributes == FindFile.SearchAttributes.AnyFile) { dirSearchPattern = "*"; } foreach (String path in Directory.GetDirectories(basePath, dirSearchPattern)) { Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink How about a C++ version? Darren Schroeder 16:27 31 Aug '03   Thanks for the excellent utility. I'd love to see a C++ version of it. Any plans for one? Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: How about a C++ version? Sébastien Lorion 16:53 31 Aug '03   Your welcome By C++, I guess you mean unmanaged ? To be honest, thought getting rid of .NET and directly using kernel functions and a regex library would be cool, I haven't really got the urge to do it ... I like the elegance of C# and the power and flexibility of .NET, something that is sorely lacking with C++, unless you really are a guru and know the ins and outs of the zillions interfaces of Win32. But I might give it a second thought if I have some free time which means not now I'm beginning a master degree and doing some contracts, so what I post here is either stuff I made for my personal use or part of what I'm doing when working. Sébastien Intelligence shared is intelligence squared. Homepage : http://www.slorion.webhop.org Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: How about a C++ version? Darren Schroeder 5:05 1 Sep '03   Yes, unmanaged. Ya, it would be cool. I'd expect it to be a bit faster too however I'm not really sure what the best regex lib is. I've looked at boost's but I don't necessarily like boost's implementation of anything. C# is elegant but I hate having to pay for the memory footprint, load time, and overall performance. If MS would fix those I'd use it. It does have lots of nice features like regex, xml, etc. Well, if you get a chance I'd like to see it. Thanks again, Darren Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Tres bien fait - Felicitations! fbougadou 7:30 13 Aug '03   Excellent work! Je vous ai donne un cinq aussi. Bon Bouleau! Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Tres bien fait - Felicitations! Sébastien Lorion 13:32 13 Aug '03   Thank you ! Merci ! Intelligence shared is intelligence squared. Homepage : http://www.slorion.webhop.org Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink got my 5 Jonathan de Halleux 3:38 9 Aug '03   nice tool, very useful. How about a shell extension? Jonathan de Halleux. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: got my 5 Sébastien Lorion 4:00 9 Aug '03   Thanks for your comment ! As to make a shell extension, this tool is fulfilling my needs now and combined with Command Prompt Explorer Bar (a very nice addition to explorer), I don't really see the point of making one. But who knows One thing I may add is an edit window which does basic validation and preview of the regex patterns. Intelligence shared is intelligence squared. http://slorion.dnsalias.org Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

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