Sorting Files Into Separate Directories Based on the First 2 Characters of the Filename

I have TONS of fonts that I use in my graphic design business. Over
300,00 0of them to be exact. I don't use all 300K of them, but I like
to keep them organized in folders based on the first two characters of
the file name.

After they're renamed, then are put into a Sorting folder in one huge
group.

My batch file moves them into the appropriate folders.

The ones starting with letters and numbers are easy, as are most of
the ones that start or have a non-alphanumeric character in the first
two positions.

There are some files that may start with A&, and a few other chracters
(that can be used in files names of course) that don't sort. I get an
error saying it can't find the file.

We all know the & is used as an accelerator key in Windows, but it is
a legal filename character, so I am wondering how i can do a simple
move with the combo of chracters.

It's been decades since I used DOS batch files on a regular basis, so
some of the more refined detials escapes me because i'm getting old
and senile. Oh, and if I didn't mention it, I'm getting old and
senile.

A lline of my batch file looks like this:
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\Aa*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\aa

A very simple move.

My folder structure looks like this:
e:\fonts\a\a# (first char "a", second char non-alpha)
e:\fonts\a\a0 (first char "a", second char number 0-9)
e:\fonts\a\aa
...
e:\fonts\a\az
e:\font\b\b#
...

A few of those lines look like this:
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A!*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A#*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A%*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A^*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A&*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A(*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A)*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A[*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A]*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#

Filenames sometimes have some crazy combos, so originally I was going
to have a line in the batch file for each legal character.

So the basic question after all my rambling is, how do I move all
files that start with a letter then following by any non-alpha-numeric
character into the x# folder?

I have over 30G of fonts in 826 folders.

I was thinking about creating a 3 character directory structure, but
the amount of folder names got to be HUGE. (Not that there isn't a
decent amount of them already...)

Anyone have any good ideas?

Thanks!

Mike

"FontLeroy" wrote:

I have TONS of fonts that I use in my graphic design business. Over
300,00 0of them to be exact. I don't use all 300K of them, but I like
to keep them organized in folders based on the first two characters of
the file name.

After they're renamed, then are put into a Sorting folder in one huge
group.

My batch file moves them into the appropriate folders.

The ones starting with letters and numbers are easy, as are most of
the ones that start or have a non-alphanumeric character in the first
two positions.

There are some files that may start with A&, and a few other chracters
(that can be used in files names of course) that don't sort. I get an
error saying it can't find the file.

Did you enclose the path\file or a variable used to hold that with
double quote characters, the same as you have to do to account for paths
or filenames that may contain spaces?

& is not a valid as the FIRST character of a path or file name due to
parsing problems in the command interpreter. If you try to run:

echo hello &myfile.txt

you'll get:

& was unexpected at this time.

That's because the interpreter saw the ampersand as a command delimiter
(see below).

echo hello "&myfile.txt"
returns:
The handle could not be duplicated during redirection of handle 1.

We all know the & is used as an accelerator key in Windows,

Not in a .bat file. Accelerator keys are menu entries that have a
specific character in their string that a single keypress of that same
character will activate that menu entry. There are no menus in a batch
file.

but it is a legal filename character, so I am wondering how i can do a
simple move with the combo of chracters.

The command delimiter character (ampersand) is used to specify multiple
commands within the same input line.

command1 && command2
execute command1
if command1 was successful (errorlevel = 0) then execute command2

command1 & command2
execute command1
execute command2 (regardless of whether command1 was successful or not)

A single & means to list multiple commands in one line where all of the
commands get executed. && means the next command depends on successful
completion of the prior command. For example:

cls & dir *.abc & dir *.xyz

will clear the screen and run BOTH the 'dir' commands whereas:

cls & dir *.abc && dir *.xyz

clears the screen, runs the first 'dir' command, but the 2nd 'dir'
command doesn't run unless errorlevel=0 from the first 'dir' command.
Since it is unlikely you have .abc files then the 2nd 'dir' never
executes. Since 'cls' is always successful, it doesn't matter if you
follow it with & or &&.

While spacing is shown above, it is not required. For example:

echo hello myfile.txt
and
echo hellomyfile.txt

and

dir *.abc & dir *.xyz
and
dir *.abc&dir *.xyz

are the same commands. Whitespacing, when not required, is only to
provide legibility to humans. The above points out confusion when you
use a leading ampersands as a character in a filename because the parser
might not understand the scope of your use.

copy myfile.txt "&myfile.txt"

will work because 'copy' expects a 2nd argument and enclosing it in
double quotes escapes the usually meaning of ampersand. If the double
quotes were missing then it would look like:

copy myfile.txt &myfile.txt
which is the same as:
copy myfile.txt & myfile.txt

which means to do a 'copy' command with a missing 2nd parameter and
trying to use the .txt filetype association to open whatever program is
assigned to that filetype (e.g., Notepad). The result of not quoting
the 2nd argument would result in the interpreter reporting "The file
cannot be copied onto itself" for the 'copy' command that was missing
the 2nd (output) parameter and loading Notepad to view myfile.txt.

Using an ampersand as the first character of a filename is fraught with
unexpected errors due to parsing problems. Don't do it. And when you
use the ampersand within a filename, make damn sure to enclose the path
or filename or both with double quotes to ensure the parser understands
that you are specifying one string and not using the command delimiter.

If I meant to copy myfile.txt into &myfile.txt (a bad choice), I'd use:

copy myfile.txt "&myfile.txt"

Later when I want to delete the 2nd file, I can't run:

del &myfile.txt

because that looks to the parser to be a 'del' command with no
parameters followed by just a filename of myfile.txt. I have to use:

del "&myfile.txt"

Anytime you have special characters in paths or filenames that could be
interpreted by the parser means having to double-quote the string;
however, that sometimes doesn't work. You should already know that:

dir C:\Program Files

won't work because the 'dir' command uses whitespace for parsing which
means it see TWO parameters: "C:\Program" and "Files". You must use:

dir "C:\Program Files"

It's been decades since I used DOS batch files on a regular basis, so
some of the more refined detials escapes me because i'm getting old
and senile. Oh, and if I didn't mention it, I'm getting old and
senile.

A lline of my batch file looks like this:
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\Aa*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\aa
A very simple move.

You have to forget about what you are entering for a command and
consider that command gets executed when the list gets expanded. The
'move' command isn't grabbing a whole bunch of files as one unit and
copying them as one object. It expands that wildcarded list and
executes the command on each expansion.

You sure you don't want to enclose those parameters with double quotes?
Are you sure that none of the fonts' filenames have spaces in them?
What if a font was named "Moby Dick Eats Jonah.ttf" and you ran a single
move command against that file, as in:

move Moby Dick Eats Jonah.ttf destination

The 'move' command has FOUR parameters, not one. The above command
would specify to move 3 files (Moby, Dick, Eats, and Jonah.ttf) into the
destination. You need to use double quotes as in:

move "Moby Disk Eats Jonah.ttf" destination

Unless you have a means of guaranteeing that every file will not contain
a space or other special character then you need to delineate the string
by using double quotes.

The 'move' command is going to expand the list of wildcarded substrings
and use those. That means 'move fil*" could hit an instance of a file
named "file&rank". That instance from the expansion would look like:

file&rank

so 'move would try to execute:

move file&rank target

As above explained, parsing will screw up because you're specified a
command delimiter in the expanded string for a particular instance. If
you double-quoted the parameters then 'move "fil*"' would hit:

file&rank

but add the double quotes to become:

"file&rank"

and the instance command of:

move "file&rank" target

would work.

Even if you believe that no paths or files involved in a batch or DOS
prompt command will involve spaces, command delimiters, or other special
characters, just get in the habit of always enclosing string parameters
for paths, files, or both with double quotes.


My folder structure looks like this:
e:\fonts\a\a# (first char "a", second char non-alpha)
e:\fonts\a\a0 (first char "a", second char number 0-9)
e:\fonts\a\aa
...
e:\fonts\a\az
e:\font\b\b#
...

A few of those lines look like this:
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A!*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A#*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A%*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A^*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A&*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A(*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A)*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A[*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A]*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#

Filenames sometimes have some crazy combos, so originally I was going
to have a line in the batch file for each legal character.

So the basic question after all my rambling is, how do I move all
files that start with a letter then following by any non-alpha-numeric
character into the x# folder?

I have over 30G of fonts in 826 folders.

I was thinking about creating a 3 character directory structure, but
the amount of folder names got to be HUGE. (Not that there isn't a
decent amount of them already...)

Anyone have any good ideas?

Thanks!

Mike

Currently I have 288 fonts. In the past, I've had over 800 fonts. None
of them used a non-alphanumeric character in their filenames. I suspect
the non-alphanumeric characters were your addition, not how they were
named from the font foundary. Use of ampersand, caret, and other
non-alphanumeric characters can result in parsing problems.

For now, see what happens when you encapsulate your path and/or file
parameters in the commands within double quotes.

On Fri, 25 Jan 2013 11:25:32 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:

"FontLeroy" wrote:

I have TONS of fonts that I use in my graphic design business. Over
300,00 0of them to be exact. I don't use all 300K of them, but I like
to keep them organized in folders based on the first two characters of
the file name.

After they're renamed, then are put into a Sorting folder in one huge
group.

My batch file moves them into the appropriate folders.

The ones starting with letters and numbers are easy, as are most of
the ones that start or have a non-alphanumeric character in the first
two positions.

There are some files that may start with A&, and a few other chracters
(that can be used in files names of course) that don't sort. I get an
error saying it can't find the file.

Did you enclose the path\file or a variable used to hold that with
double quote characters, the same as you have to do to account for paths
or filenames that may contain spaces?

& is not a valid as the FIRST character of a path or file name due to
parsing problems in the command interpreter. If you try to run:

echo hello &myfile.txt

you'll get:

& was unexpected at this time.

That's because the interpreter saw the ampersand as a command delimiter
(see below).

echo hello "&myfile.txt"
returns:
The handle could not be duplicated during redirection of handle 1.

We all know the & is used as an accelerator key in Windows,

Not in a .bat file. Accelerator keys are menu entries that have a
specific character in their string that a single keypress of that same
character will activate that menu entry. There are no menus in a batch
file.

but it is a legal filename character, so I am wondering how i can do a
simple move with the combo of chracters.

The command delimiter character (ampersand) is used to specify multiple
commands within the same input line.

command1 && command2
execute command1
if command1 was successful (errorlevel = 0) then execute command2

command1 & command2
execute command1
execute command2 (regardless of whether command1 was successful or not)

A single & means to list multiple commands in one line where all of the
commands get executed. && means the next command depends on successful
completion of the prior command. For example:

cls & dir *.abc & dir *.xyz

will clear the screen and run BOTH the 'dir' commands whereas:

cls & dir *.abc && dir *.xyz

clears the screen, runs the first 'dir' command, but the 2nd 'dir'
command doesn't run unless errorlevel=0 from the first 'dir' command.
Since it is unlikely you have .abc files then the 2nd 'dir' never
executes. Since 'cls' is always successful, it doesn't matter if you
follow it with & or &&.

While spacing is shown above, it is not required. For example:

echo hello myfile.txt
and
echo hellomyfile.txt

and

dir *.abc & dir *.xyz
and
dir *.abc&dir *.xyz

are the same commands. Whitespacing, when not required, is only to
provide legibility to humans. The above points out confusion when you
use a leading ampersands as a character in a filename because the parser
might not understand the scope of your use.

copy myfile.txt "&myfile.txt"

will work because 'copy' expects a 2nd argument and enclosing it in
double quotes escapes the usually meaning of ampersand. If the double
quotes were missing then it would look like:

copy myfile.txt &myfile.txt
which is the same as:
copy myfile.txt & myfile.txt

which means to do a 'copy' command with a missing 2nd parameter and
trying to use the .txt filetype association to open whatever program is
assigned to that filetype (e.g., Notepad). The result of not quoting
the 2nd argument would result in the interpreter reporting "The file
cannot be copied onto itself" for the 'copy' command that was missing
the 2nd (output) parameter and loading Notepad to view myfile.txt.

Using an ampersand as the first character of a filename is fraught with
unexpected errors due to parsing problems. Don't do it. And when you
use the ampersand within a filename, make damn sure to enclose the path
or filename or both with double quotes to ensure the parser understands
that you are specifying one string and not using the command delimiter.

If I meant to copy myfile.txt into &myfile.txt (a bad choice), I'd use:

copy myfile.txt "&myfile.txt"

Later when I want to delete the 2nd file, I can't run:

del &myfile.txt

because that looks to the parser to be a 'del' command with no
parameters followed by just a filename of myfile.txt. I have to use:

del "&myfile.txt"

Anytime you have special characters in paths or filenames that could be
interpreted by the parser means having to double-quote the string;
however, that sometimes doesn't work. You should already know that:

dir C:\Program Files

won't work because the 'dir' command uses whitespace for parsing which
means it see TWO parameters: "C:\Program" and "Files". You must use:

dir "C:\Program Files"

It's been decades since I used DOS batch files on a regular basis, so
some of the more refined detials escapes me because i'm getting old
and senile. Oh, and if I didn't mention it, I'm getting old and
senile.

A lline of my batch file looks like this:
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\Aa*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\aa
A very simple move.

You have to forget about what you are entering for a command and
consider that command gets executed when the list gets expanded. The
'move' command isn't grabbing a whole bunch of files as one unit and
copying them as one object. It expands that wildcarded list and
executes the command on each expansion.

You sure you don't want to enclose those parameters with double quotes?
Are you sure that none of the fonts' filenames have spaces in them?
What if a font was named "Moby Dick Eats Jonah.ttf" and you ran a single
move command against that file, as in:

move Moby Dick Eats Jonah.ttf destination

The 'move' command has FOUR parameters, not one. The above command
would specify to move 3 files (Moby, Dick, Eats, and Jonah.ttf) into the
destination. You need to use double quotes as in:

move "Moby Disk Eats Jonah.ttf" destination

Unless you have a means of guaranteeing that every file will not contain
a space or other special character then you need to delineate the string
by using double quotes.

The 'move' command is going to expand the list of wildcarded substrings
and use those. That means 'move fil*" could hit an instance of a file
named "file&rank". That instance from the expansion would look like:

file&rank

so 'move would try to execute:

move file&rank target

As above explained, parsing will screw up because you're specified a
command delimiter in the expanded string for a particular instance. If
you double-quoted the parameters then 'move "fil*"' would hit:

file&rank

but add the double quotes to become:

"file&rank"

and the instance command of:

move "file&rank" target

would work.

Even if you believe that no paths or files involved in a batch or DOS
prompt command will involve spaces, command delimiters, or other special
characters, just get in the habit of always enclosing string parameters
for paths, files, or both with double quotes.


My folder structure looks like this:
e:\fonts\a\a# (first char "a", second char non-alpha)
e:\fonts\a\a0 (first char "a", second char number 0-9)
e:\fonts\a\aa
...
e:\fonts\a\az
e:\font\b\b#
...

A few of those lines look like this:
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A!*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A#*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A%*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A^*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A&*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A(*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A)*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A[*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#
move /y e:\fonts\!Renamed2Sort\A]*.ttf E:\Fonts\Fonts\A\a#

Filenames sometimes have some crazy combos, so originally I was going
to have a line in the batch file for each legal character.

So the basic question after all my rambling is, how do I move all
files that start with a letter then following by any non-alpha-numeric
character into the x# folder?

I have over 30G of fonts in 826 folders.

I was thinking about creating a 3 character directory structure, but
the amount of folder names got to be HUGE. (Not that there isn't a
decent amount of them already...)

Anyone have any good ideas?

Thanks!

Mike

Currently I have 288 fonts. In the past, I've had over 800 fonts. None
of them used a non-alphanumeric character in their filenames. I suspect
the non-alphanumeric characters were your addition, not how they were
named from the font foundary. Use of ampersand, caret, and other
non-alphanumeric characters can result in parsing problems.

For now, see what happens when you encapsulate your path and/or file
parameters in the commands within double quotes.


That was wihtout a doubt the most informative inforamtion I have seen
in DECADES! I read through it ince, but now will analyze it and fill
what's left of my brain cells with this info as I restructure my batch
file.

I did forget about the ampersand 'function' in windows. it's been a
long time...

Pretty much EVERY font has spaces in there and I totally forgot
aboutwhat you wrote about spaces. I'm an idiot. I used to be
smart(er)...

thanks again and I'm gonna get to work!

Mike