125} How do I get the age of a file? Or of the files in a folder?
Although the ingredients of this task already are covered in this FAQ
(in particular see
item #8,
item #31
and
item #45),
let's revisit this frequent question. First consider the case of a
single file:
@echo off & setlocal enableextensions
::
:: Usage
if "%~1"=="" (
echo Usage: %~0 ["Filename"]
goto :EOF)
::
:: Check for existence
if not exist "%~1" (
echo Target "%~1" not found
goto :EOF)
::
:: Temporary files
set vbs_=%temp%\tmp$$$.vbs
set tmp_=%temp%\tmp$$$.cmd
::
:: Build a Visual Basic Script
> "%vbs_%" echo Set FSO=CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
>>"%vbs_%" echo sysDate = Date
>>"%vbs_%" echo Set fname = FSO.GetFile("%~1")
>>"%vbs_%" echo age = DateDiff("d", fname.DateLastModified, SysDate)
>>"%vbs_%" echo WScript.Echo "@set age_=" ^& age
::
:: Run the script with Microsoft Windows Script Host Version 5.6
cscript //nologo "%vbs_%" > "%tmp_%"
::
:: Run the auxiliary cmd script made by vbs
call "%tmp_%"
::
:: Display the result
echo The file "%~1"
echo is %age_% days old
::
:: Clean up
for %%f in ("%tmp_%" "%vbs_%") do if exist %%f del %%f
endlocal & goto :EOF
The output might be e.g.
C:\_D\TEST>cmdfaq cmdfaq2.cmd
The file "cmdfaq2.cmd"
is 14 days old
An aside. The above script fails if given an existing folder as the
parameter instead of a proper file name. How to test for the type
(folder or file) is covered in
item #75
if you find it relevant to include that test.
Next consider traversing all the files in a folder
@echo off & setlocal enableextensions
::
:: Usage
if "%~1"=="" (
echo Usage: %~0 ["[Folder\]FileName"]
echo Wilcards allowed in the filename
goto :EOF)
::
:: Traverse an entire folder
if "%~2"=="recurse" goto _next
for %%f in ("%~1") do call "%~0" "%%~f" recurse
goto :EOF
::
:_next
::
:: Temporary files
set vbs_=%temp%\tmp$$$.vbs
set tmp_=%temp%\tmp$$$.cmd
::
:: Build a Visual Basic Script
> "%vbs_%" echo Set FSO=CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
>>"%vbs_%" echo sysDate = Date
>>"%vbs_%" echo Set fname = FSO.GetFile("%~1")
>>"%vbs_%" echo age = DateDiff("d", fname.DateLastModified, SysDate)
>>"%vbs_%" echo WScript.Echo "@set age_=" ^& age
::
:: Run the script with Microsoft Windows Script Host Version 5.6
cscript //nologo "%vbs_%" > "%tmp_%"
::
:: Run the auxiliary cmd script made by vbs
call "%tmp_%"
::
:: Display the result
echo The file "%~1"
echo is %age_% days old
::
:: Clean up
for %%f in ("%vbs_%" "%tmp_%") do if exist %%f del %%f
endlocal & goto :EOF
The output might be e.g.
C:\_D\TEST>cmdfaq "c:\_d\test\*.*"
The file "c:\_d\test\BATFAQ.BAS"
is 271 days old
The file "c:\_d\test\BATFAQ.BAT"
is 211 days old
The file "c:\_d\test\BATFAQ2.BAT"
is 214 days old
The file "c:\_d\test\BATFAQ3.BAT"
is 1080 days old
The file "c:\_d\test\CMDFAQ.CMD"
is 0 days old
The file "c:\_d\test\CMDFAQ2.CMD"
is 14 days old
Finally, what about pinpointing the files that are for example at
least 250 days old? A small modification suffices:
::
:: Display the result
if %age_% GEQ 250 (
echo The file "%~1"
echo is %age_% days old
)
It is trivial to see that you can put any operation in there. One
very frequently asked questions is "How do I delete files older than
x days with a command line script?". Just insert within the "if"
del /p "%~1"
Also see about
forfiles.exe in Item #8.
Assorted NT/2000/XP/.. CMD.EXE Script Tricks
