move all files from “old” folders out into the parent as long as there are no files existing in the parent folder yet

Question

My code should move all files from \"old\" folders out into the parent as long as there are no files existing in the parent folder yet.

└───Folder
    ├───1
             


        

Answer 1

There are two problems in your attempt:

1. you need delayed expansion for the variable VAR as you are writing and reading it in the same block of code; if you change it to set "VAR=true" and set "VAR=" (empty), you could use if defined VAR, which does not require delayed expansion;
2. the content of the currently iterated directory should not be checked in the inner for loop, so this is skipped in case there are already files;

Here is a possible solution:

rem // Iterate over the changing directories:
for /D %%D in ("C:\testen\qft\*") do (
    rem // Check whether current directory contains files:
    dir /A:-D "%%~D\*.*" > nul 2>&1 || (
        rem // Iterate over the files to process:
        for %%F in ("%%~D\old\*.*") do (
            rem // Actually move the files one level up:
            move /Y "%%~F" "%%~dpF.."
        )
    )
)