To delete all folders in the current directory with pattern matching

Question

I need to delete all the folders in current directory that starts with say \"foo\" followed by date
for example we have

1. foo20120620
2. foo2

Answer 1

The magical for command in dos batch....

from the command line

for /f "tokens=*" %f in ('dir .\foo* /ad/b') do rd "%f" /s/q 

from the batch file

for /f "tokens=*" %%f in ('dir .\foo* /ad/b') do rd "%%f" /s/q 

/f runs the command in the '' in the brackets, and tokenises its. By saying tokens=* all the file/dir name goe into one variable %f

here is an example

C:\temp>md foo3

C:\temp>md foo2

C:\temp>md foo1

C:\temp>dir
 Volume in drive C is TEST
 Volume Serial Number is F47F-AAE1

 Directory of C:\temp

18/06/2012  09:42 p.m.    <DIR>          .
18/06/2012  09:42 p.m.    <DIR>          ..
18/06/2012  09:42 p.m.    <DIR>          foo1
18/06/2012  09:42 p.m.    <DIR>          foo2
18/06/2012  09:42 p.m.    <DIR>          foo3
               0 File(s)              0 bytes
               5 Dir(s)  131,009,933,312 bytes free

C:\temp>for /f "tokens=*" %f in ('dir .\foo* /ad/b') do rd "%f" /s/q

C:\temp>rd "foo1" /s/q

C:\temp>rd "foo2" /s/q

C:\temp>rd "foo3" /s/q

C:\temp>dir /ad
 Volume in drive C is TEST
 Volume Serial Number is F47F-AAE1

 Directory of C:\temp

18/06/2012  09:42 p.m.    <DIR>          .
18/06/2012  09:42 p.m.    <DIR>          ..
               0 File(s)              0 bytes
               2 Dir(s)  131,009,933,312 bytes free

C:\temp>

Answer 2

I know this is old, but I thought it would be worth mentioning that the FOR command creates parameter variables which are identified with a letter rather than a number (e.g. %%G), so, in order to avoid confusion between parameters and pathname format letters, avoid using the letters (a, d, f, n, p, s, t, x, z) as FOR parameters or just choose a FOR parameter letter that is UPPER case.

Format letters are case sensitive, so using a capital letter is also a good way to avoid conflicts, eg. %%A rather than %%a.

Reference

Answer 3

You could use the FOR /D command.

for /d %%p in (foo*) do rd /s /q "%%p"