Topic: Moving Folders

[cmwade77]

Ok, I have a situation here, perhaps someone can help me, I have a lot of folders named Archive or Archived on my server that I need to move from that server to a drive on another server.

The paths need to remain the same, except for the drive letter (or server name). I have not yet found anything that allows this to be done.

I know this is not directly related to AutoCAD or LISP, but I know you guys might have something that works. I am open to this being done in LISP, VB.NET, Apple Script, Automator, a third party tool for Windows, Mac or Linux, basically whatever can get the job done.

I have tried writing my own; however, it turns out that some of the path names are too long for Windows (this was before we had a mixed environment too, so not sure how that happened) and so my toll would error out when that happens. I managed to get it to skip the errors; however, those folders need to be moved as well.

[Keith™]

Hmmm .. can you not simply drag and drop the entire folder structure from the source machine to the destination machine? If you do, the folders are automatically recreated in the same location as on the source.

[ronjonp]

XCOPY 

[cmwade77]

XCOPY 

XCOPY doesn't seem to have a move option, nor a way to say I only want folders named Archive or Archived and all such folders.

[Lee Mac]

IIRC vl-file-rename should work to move folders, though, I haven't tested it across drives... /disclaimer

EDIT: ignore the above, vl-file-rename can only rename the lowest folder in the directory tree.

[cmwade77]

Hmmm .. can you not simply drag and drop the entire folder structure from the source machine to the destination machine? If you do, the folders are automatically recreated in the same location as on the source.

Um, that would be a lot of folders, I want to move all Archive folders (and their contents) from we'll say Drive H: to Drive T: (or \\Server1 to \\Server2) with the remainder of the path remaining the same, so lets say that I have the following folder:
H:\Projects\Small Jobs\Archived

I would want that folder MOVED to:
T:\Projects\Small Jobs\Archived

IIRC vl-file-rename should work to move folders, though, I haven't tested it across drives... /disclaimer

I did look at that, but it doesn't seem to work across drives, but I will look again to see if I missed something.

[danallen]

Try beyond compare by scooter software, has full function trial that will do what you need. You can filter by folder or file names, or any other attribute, date, etc.

http://www.scootersoftware.com/index.php

update - just to test the function, the filtering folder syntax is fussy, use "...\archive\" in the include folders dialog

[kruuger]

Where is the problem 
just drag all folders like Keith said.
of course need to wait until all files will be moved.
k.

[cmwade77]

Where is the problem 
just drag all folders like Keith said.
of course need to wait until all files will be moved.
k.

Again, I do not want to move anything that is not in an Archive folder, so dragging and dropping does not work, as that would move everything.

[Kerry]

Make a batch file

Code: [Select]

:: MOVESTUFF.BAT
:: kdub@theSwamp
:: MD "D:\Projects\Small Jobs\Archived\"
XCOPY /Y /E "K:\Projects\Small Jobs\Archived\*.*" "D:\Projects\Small Jobs\Archived\"
RD  /S /Q "K:\Projects\Small Jobs\Archived"

[cmwade77]

Make a batch file

Code: [Select]

:: MOVESTUFF.BAT
:: kdub@theSwamp
:: MD "D:\Projects\Small Jobs\Archived\"
XCOPY /Y /E "K:\Projects\Small Jobs\Archived\*.*" "D:\Projects\Small Jobs\Archived\"
RD  /S /Q "K:\Projects\Small Jobs\Archived"

Ok, but that was only an example, I also have Archived folders in probably around 350-400 subfolders (not just Small Jobs), this is where everything seems to fail.

[owenwengerd]

This is exactly the type of scenario that ROBOCOPY was designed for.

[kruuger]

This is exactly the type of scenario that ROBOCOPY was designed for.

x2

Code: [Select]

Robocopy.exe "H:\Projects\Small Jobs\Archived" "T:\Projects\Small Jobs\Archived" /E /V /NP /Z /R:0 /W:0 /XD "*Archive"
k.

[irneb]

... it turns out that some of the path names are too long for Windows (this was before we had a mixed environment too, so not sure how that happened) ...

Could you explain what's going on? Also what systems are in this "mixed" environment.

AFAIK windows (if you use NTFS file systems - not one of the FAT based file systems) has no restriction on path length (or none that should matter). Some programs use old / custom libraries linking to Windows' file system (I think portions of acad falls into this category) - which might then error with path lengths are in excess of around 250 characters. That might thus propagate the error into AutoLisp - it's definitely not AutoLisp having a restriction on string lengths (I've tested this before and it works fine with strings up to around 200,000,000 characters).

If your "mixed" environment is linux servers, Mac's, NAS, etc. Then they may have some restrictions as well - also depending on the file system(s) they use. Note Linux & NAS (Network Attached Storage - usually using Linux/BSD as operating system) have a plethora of filesystems to choose from. You will have to make a decision if this is where your error occurs:

• Change all your paths to be less verbose: Rather than naming a folder like .../Job#12345 - Job's Full Description/Plans of Area 10/... use the minimum unique portion from that, e.g. .../12345/Plans-10/...
• Choose a different filesystem which can handle these extremely long paths.

If you don't follow one or both those options, it won't only be your archiving which breaks apart.

[VovKa]

why not use a file manager (FAR or alike)?