Batch file to create files using a file containing file names

er, you probably want open(name+extension, "w")instead of open(name+extension, "wb")

Thank you, and for no one, that did the trick! Man, I really gotta learn Python.

I can't recommend Python enough. Good luck.

It's actually quite doable - concise even - in cmd script. This works:set dir=C:\Some filesset ext=abcdel /f /q "%dir%\*.%ext%" >nulfor /f "delims=" %%f in (filenames.txt) do >"%dir%\%%~f.%ext%" ( echo.[Setting1] echo.Value1=2.0 echo.[Setting2] echo.SrcFile=%dir%\%%~f.%ext% echo.HostName=MyHost echo.[Setting3] echo....)Subtleties: Redirecting the del command's output to nul suppresses complaints if there are no files to delete. There's no need for "tokens=*" in the for /f args, because with "delims=" there can be only one token anyway. Using %%~f instead of %%f strips any surrounding double-quotes that may occur in the expansion of %%f. Not strictly necessary in this application, but generally good practice. Using a single write redirection to cover the entire group of echo statements instead of individual append redirections on each echo is clearer and less error-prone. Using echo. means you'll have no trouble if you need to echo a blank line. Any time you need a ) in your output files, you'll need to write that as ^) inside the appropriate echo statement; without that, the ) will be taken as terminating the statement group controlled by the for command.

Thanks for the cmd script knowledge, flabdablet! My next problem is making multiple copies of the same files, i.e: file1(part01).abc file1(part02).abc file1(part03).abc file2(part01).abc file2(part02).abc file2(part03).abc file3(part01).abc file3(part02).abc file3(part03).abc ... Which contain the data: Setting1] Value1=2.0 [Setting2] SrcFile=C:\some files\file1(part01).xyz HostName=MyHost [Setting3] ... Setting1] Value1=2.0 [Setting2] SrcFile=C:\some files\file1(part02).xyz HostName=MyHost [Setting3] ... All of which is still only based on the original filenames.txt.

This works:set dir=C:\Some filesset ext=abcdel /f /q "%dir%\*.%ext%" >nulfor /f "delims=" %%f in (filenames.txt) do ( for /l %%n in (1,1,3) do >"%dir%\%%~f(part0%%n).%ext%" ( echo.[Setting1] echo.Value1=2.0 echo.[Setting2] echo.SrcFile=%dir%\%%~f(part0%%n^).%ext% echo.HostName=MyHost echo.[Setting3] echo.... ))Extra-subtle subtlety: even though the redirection >"%dir%\%%~f(part0%%n).%ext%" is contained within the parentheses associated with the outer for loop, there is no ^ required before its embedded ). This may be because of the double-quotes, or because redirections are processed before anything else; not sure. Also, horrible kludges are going to be necessary if you need %%n greater than 9, because cmd's string handling is abysmally clumsy. It can still be made to work, but don't try doing so without a safety net. And a vomit bucket.

Here's an example that generates names with (part00) through (part15) embedded in them:setlocal enabledelayedexpansionset dir=%temp%\Some filesset ext=abcdel /f /q "%dir%\*.%ext%" >nulfor /f "delims=" %%f in (filenames.txt) do ( for /l %%n in (100,1,115) do ( set num=%%n set name=%dir%\%%~f(part!num:~1!^).%ext% >"!name!" ( echo.[Setting1] echo.Value1=2.0 echo.[Setting2] echo.SrcFile=!name! echo.HostName=MyHost echo.[Setting3] echo.... ) ))The key thing here is that the inner loop runs not from 0 to 15 but from 100 to 115. That means that set num=%%n will always make num a three-digit string; the construct !num:~1! then drops the first character, resulting in the desired two-digit string between 00 and 15. The other necessary piece of nasty here is the use of setlocal enabledelayedexpansion to make the !variable! construct available. This works just like %variable% except that it happens just before command invocation instead of early in the parsing process. Using %num% and %name% instead of !num! and !name! would result in their values being expanded during the parsing of the outer for loop, which would make the set num and set name commands inside the inner loop useless. You can see the difference if you run this thing with echo left on: where %dir% and %ext% appear in the script you'll see their expanded values echoed to the cmd window every time, while !num! and !name! echo as themselves even though their expanded values do get used to build the output filenames and content. Doing this in Python would probably involve fewer test iterations and rather less swearing and nausea. I think it's only an unwillingness to admit defeat that keeps me writing things with cmd.

By the way, it is the double-quotes that make ^) unnecessary inside the previous version's redirection.

And now I see I've missed the fact that you wanted .abc extensions on the generated files but .xyz extensions on the SrcFile= lines inside them. So just get rid of my %ext% variable and do it like this:setlocal enabledelayedexpansionset dir=C:\Some filesdel /f /q "%dir%\*.abc" >nulfor /f "delims=" %%f in (filenames.txt) do ( for /l %%n in (100,1,115) do ( set num=%%n set name=%dir%\%%~f(part!num:~1!^) >"!name!.abc" ( echo.[Setting1] echo.Value1=2.0 echo.[Setting2] echo.SrcFile=!name!.xyz echo.HostName=MyHost echo.[Setting3] echo.... ) ))Also, because all the file content gets generated using a write-redirect rather than an append-redirect, you might not actually need the del command.