Windows – dir command – search for file names with partial string and file extension

I was asking (not only to myself) "doesn't it work a simple..."?

copy  C:\ORIG_DIR\?????.txt C:\Dest_Dir

Thanks to G-Man it is tested that in powershell it works, meanwhile in cmd.exe the above command will copy each match up to five characters and with all the extension that start with .txt.

Question mark (?)

Use the question mark as a substitute for a single character in a name. For example, if you type gloss?.doc, you will locate the file Glossy.doc or Gloss1.doc but not Glossary.doc.

Reference:

• Wildcards under windows.

• Powershell, text and regular expressions.

You can pipe the DIR /B /S /OD "tracker.txt" command results to a temp log file but have it use the FOR loop substitutions to put the date time stamp of each file that matches the name followed by a comma and then the full explicit path and file name (i.e. YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm [AM/PM]).

You then use the SORT command against that file to sort all the lines in that file to a new sorted file but with the newest time stamp file at the bottom of the list.

Lastly, you'd run a final FOR loop through the final file list using the comma as the delimiter and then only setting the iterator variable in that loop to each full explicit path and when it get to the bottom of that list, this is the newest file that is SET last and then you can do something with that last set variable which is the newest file date stamp wise from within all the directories you specify recursively.

Batch Script Example

Be sure to set the value of the SET StartDir= variable to be the root folder where the DIR command starts for finding the files recursively.

@ECHO ON

SET StartDir=C:\Users\User\Desktop\Test

IF EXIST "%temp%\~dir1temp.dat" DEL /Q /F "%temp%\~dir1temp.dat"
FOR /F "TOKENS=*" %%A IN ('Dir /B /S /OD "%StartDir%\tracker.txt"') DO ECHO %%~TA, %%~FPNXA>>"%temp%\~dir1temp.dat"

IF EXIST "%temp%\~dirsorttemp.dat" DEL /Q /F "%temp%\~dirsorttemp.dat"
SORT "%temp%\~dir1temp.dat">>"%temp%\~dirsorttemp.dat"

FOR /F "TOKENS=2 DELIMS=," %%A IN (%temp%\~dirsorttemp.dat) DO (SET File=%%~A)

ECHO %File%
:::<command to do something with %file%>
PAUSE

Further Resources

• Sort
• For /F

• FOR /? (batch substitutions)

  In addition, substitution of FOR variable references has been enhanced.
  You can now use the following optional syntax:
  
  %~fI        - expands %I to a fully qualified path name
  %~tI        - expands %I to date/time of file
  

• Set