Copy a list (txt) of files

Question

I've seen some scripts examples over SO, but none of them seems to provide examples of how to read filenames from a .txt list.

This example is good, so as to copy all files from A to B folder

xcopy c:\olddir\*.java c:\newdir /D /E /Q /Y

But I need something like the next, where I can fill actually the source and destination folder:

 @echo off
 set src_folder = c:\whatever\*.*
 set dst_folder = c:\foo
 xcopy /S/E/U %src_folder% %dst_folder%

And instead of src_folder = c:\whatever\*.*, those *.* need to be list of files read from a txt file.

File-list.txt (example)

file1.pds
filex.pbd
blah1.xls

Could someone suggest me how to do it?

Answer 1

Given your list of file names in a file called File-list.txt, the following lines should do what you want:

@echo off
set src_folder=c:\whatever
set dst_folder=c:\target
for /f "tokens=*" %%i in (File-list.txt) DO (
    xcopy /S/E "%src_folder%\%%i" "%dst_folder%"
)

Answer 2

I just tried to use Frank Bollack and sparrowt's answer, but without success because it included a /U switch for xcopy. It's my understanding that /U means that the files will only be copied if they already exist in the destination which wasn't the case for me and doesn't appear to be the case for the original questioner. It may have meant to have been a /V for verify, which would make more sense.

Removing the /U switch fixed the problem.

@echo off
set src_folder=c:\whatever
set dst_folder=c:\target
for /f "tokens=*" %%i in (File-list.txt) DO (
xcopy /S/E "%src_folder%\%%i" "%dst_folder%"
)

Answer 3

This will do it:

@echo off
set src_folder=c:\batch
set dst_folder=c:\batch\destination
set file_list=c:\batch\file_list.txt

if not exist "%dst_folder%" mkdir "%dst_folder%"

for /f "delims=" %%f in (%file_list%) do (
    xcopy "%src_folder%\%%f" "%dst_folder%\"
)

Answer 4

The following will copy files from a list and preserve the directory structure. Useful when you need to compress files which have been changed in a range of Git/SVN commits¹, for example. It will also deal with spaces in the directory/file names, and works with both relative and absolute paths:

(based on this question: How to expand two local variables inside a for loop in a batch file)

@echo off

setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

set "source=input dir"
set "target=output dir"

for /f "tokens=* usebackq" %%A in ("file_list.txt") do (
    set "FILE=%%A"
    set "dest_file_full=%target%\!FILE:%source%=!"
    set "dest_file_filename=%%~nxA"
    call set "dest_file_dir=%%dest_file_full:!dest_file_filename!=%%"
    if not exist "!dest_file_dir!" (
        md "!dest_file_dir!"
    )
    set "source_file_full=%source%\!FILE:%source%=!"
    copy "!source_file_full!" "!dest_file_dir!"
)
pause

Note that if your file list has absolute paths, you must set source as an absolute path as well.

[¹] if using Git, see: Export only modified and added files with folder structure in Git

Answer 5

This will also keep the files original file directory:

@echo off
set src_folder=c:\whatever
set dst_folder=c:\target
set file_list=C:\file_list.txt

for /f "tokens=*" %%i in (%file_list%) DO (
   echo f | xcopy /E /C /R /Y "%src_folder%\%%i" "%dst_folder%\%%i"
)