How to test if a path is a file or directory in Windows batch file?

I searched here, found someone using this

but didn’t work, when %1==c:\this is a file with spaces.csproj , the test still success, which means it will still be treated as a folder.

anyone knows the answer, i guess this is a very common problem and Windows has existed for many many years, it should have a very simple solution.

6 Answers 6

I know the if exist path\nul test for a folder used to work on MS-DOS. I don’t know if it was broken with the introduction of long file names.

I knew that if exist «long path\nul» does not work on Windows batch. I did not realize until today that if exist path\nul works on Vista and beyond as long as path is in the short 8.3 form.

The original code appears to work on Vista. It seems like it should work on XP as well, but I believe the following XP bug is getting in the way: Batch parameter %

The original code does not need the FOR loop, it could simply use %

Here is a variation that fully classifies a path as INVALID, FILE or FOLDER. It works on Vista, but does NOT work on XP because of the %

s1 bug. I’m not sure how it performs on MS-DOS.
EDIT 2015-12-08: There are a number of Windows situations where this fails

I believe this variation will work with nearly all versions of Microsoft batch, including MS-DOS and XP. (it obviously won’t work on early versions of DOS that don’t support PUSHD)

UPDATE 2014-12-26

I’m pretty sure the following will work on all versions of Windows from XP onward, but I have only tested on Win 7.
Edit 2015-12-08: This can fail on network drives because the folder test can falsely report a file as a folder

UPDATE 2015-12-08

Finally — a test that truly should work on any Windows version from XP onward, including with network drives and UNC paths

Note — This technique is intended to be used for a path without any wildcards (a single specific file or folder). If the provided path includes one or more wildcards, then it provides the result for the first file or folder that the file system encounters. Identical directory structures may give different sort order results depending on the underlying file system (FAT32, NTFS, etc.)

Batch files: List all files in a directory with relative paths

Concerning Windows batch files: Is there a way to list all the files (or all of a specific type) in a certain directory and its subdirectories, including the paths relative to the current (or the search) directory in the list?

For example, if I want all the .txt files in the current directory and subdirectories with their full paths, I can do

and I will get something like

I will get something like

But what I really want is:

5 Answers 5

You could simply get the character length of the current directory, and remove them from your absolute list

The simplest (but not the fastest) way to iterate a directory tree and list relative file paths is to use FORFILES.

The relative paths will be quoted with a leading .\ as in

To remove quotes:

To remove quotes and the leading .\ :

or without using delayed expansion

This answer will not work correctly with root paths containing equal signs ( = ). (Thanks @dbenham for pointing that out.)

EDITED: Fixed the issue with paths containing ! , again spotted by @dbenham (thanks!).

Alternatively to calculating the length and extracting substrings you could use a different approach:

store the root path;

clear the root path from the file paths.

Here’s my attempt (which worked for me):

The r variable is assigned with the current directory. Unless the current directory is the root directory of a disk drive, it will not end with \ , which we amend by appending the character. (No longer the case, as the script now reads the __CD__ variable, whose value always ends with \ (thanks @jeb!), instead of CD .)

In the loop, we store the current file path into a variable. Then we output the variable, stripping the root path along the way.

How to do a simple file search in cmd

I want to quickly search for a file given its name or part of its name, from the windows command line (not power shell). This is similar to opening explorer and using the search box at the top.

Note: dir can search based on a string template but it will not search in the subdirectories.

Note2: findstr can be used to search for a token inside files and has a recursivity flag; it’s funny that a more complex find can be easily discovered .

5 Answers 5

dir /s *foo* searches in current folder and sub folders.

It finds directories as well as files.

/s Lists every occurrence of the specified file name within the specified directory and all subdirectories.

searches for all txt file in the directory tree. Before using it just change the directory to root using

you can also export the list to a text file using

and search within using

EDIT 1: Although this dir command works since the old dos days but Win7 added something new called Where

will search for exe & dll in the drive c:\Windows as suggested by @SPottuit you can also copy the output to the clipboard with

just wait for the prompt to return and don’t copy anything until then.

EDIT 2: If you are searching recursively and the output is big you can always use more to enable paging, it will show — More — at the bottom and will scroll to the next page once you press SPACE or moves line by line on pressing ENTER

How to verify if a file exists in a batch file?

I have to create a .BAT file that does this:

1. If C:\myprogram\sync\data.handler exists, exit;
2. If C:\myprogram\html\data.sql does not exist, exit;
3. In C:\myprogram\sync\ delete all files and folders except ( test , test3 and test2 )
4. Copy C:\myprogram\html\data.sql to C:\myprogram\sync\
5. Call other batch file with option sync.bat myprogram.ini .

If it was in the Bash environment it was easy for me, but I do not know how to test if a file or folder exists and if it is a file or folder.

3 Answers 3

You can use IF EXIST to check for a file:

If you do not need an «else», you can do something like this:

Here’s a working example of searching for a file or a folder:

Type IF /? to get help about if, it clearly explains how to use IF EXIST.

To delete a complete tree except some folders, see the answer of this question: Windows batch script to delete everything in a folder except one

Finally copying just means calling COPY and calling another bat file can be done like this:

Here is a good example on how to do a command if a file does or does not exist:

We will take those three files and put it in a temporary place. After deleting the folder, it will restore those three files.

Use the XCOPY command:

I will explain what the /c /d /h /e /i /y means:

Call other batch file with option sync.bat myprogram.ini.

I am not sure what you mean by this, but if you just want to open both of these files you just put the path of the file like

If it was in the Bash environment it was easy for me, but I do not know how to test if a file or folder exists and if it is a file or folder.

You are using a batch file. You mentioned earlier you have to create a .bat file to use this:

I have to create a .BAT file that does this:

Batch Script: to find files

#1 Richard ken

Hi, I have zero experience in batch scripting but I want to write a code that can accept a list of user input, that have partial filename, and search in the directory and sub-directory. If there are matches return where those files are located. I have been searching for anything that could give me some idea, but I couldn’t find anything close. Thank you

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#2 egjk

for /r %%x in (*.resx) do echo «%%x»

I think this is what you’re looking for? The * is a wildcard which means it captures anything with the file extension .resx.
You could use this to find all files with «pic» in the name by doing something like pic_*.jpg. Or a wildcard for any file extension e.g recommendation_letter.*
You can combine wild cards too e.g. pic_001*.* would return pic_0012.jpg and pic_0014.png

Edited by egjk, 04 July 2017 — 04:11 PM.

#3 britechguy

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt

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What you’re looking for already exists in the form of the DIR command.

and look at the tutorials regarding the switches you need to use.

Brian AKA Bri the Tech Guy (website in my user profile) — Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit
A lot of what appears to be progress is just so much technological rococo.

#4 GoofProg

Yeah yeah. In Windows there is the find tool and the findstr tool. You may want to look into using the findstr tool in combination with dir /s

That can be a batch script or a little c++ app.
the character > pipes to stdout

#5 britechguy

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For the sake of clarity, the ‘>’ (redirect stdout [standard output] to), and ‘ Brian AKA Bri the Tech Guy (website in my user profile) — Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit
A lot of what appears to be progress is just so much technological rococo.

#6 JohnnyJammer

Ok i wrote ones years ago but i also utilize the right click on folder option.

Save this in notepad then save as SearchDirectory.reg and place that in C:\Windows, then right click and select merge to add the registry keys .

Now in notepad again paste this code below and save as SearchDirectory.bat in C:\Windows .

Now to search, right click a folder and select the Search Directory from the menu.

Edited by JohnnyJammer, 10 July 2017 — 08:42 PM.

#7 jwoods301

Good tutorial on Windows Batch Scripting.

#8 britechguy

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And as much as I love batch files, and I do, I am slowly transitioning to PowerShell.

I have yet to find a single Command Prompt command that has not been aliased under PowerShell using precisely the same syntax. It’s clear that Microsoft is deprecating Command Prompt and, long term, that means the writing’s on the wall.

PowerShell as a whole is still well out of my comfort zone, but if I were starting from scratch in learning scripting it would be PowerShell, not Command Prompt.

Brian AKA Bri the Tech Guy (website in my user profile) — Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit
A lot of what appears to be progress is just so much technological rococo.

#9 JohnnyJammer

And as much as I love batch files, and I do, I am slowly transitioning to PowerShell.

I have yet to find a single Command Prompt command that has not been aliased under PowerShell using precisely the same syntax. It’s clear that Microsoft is deprecating Command Prompt and, long term, that means the writing’s on the wall.

PowerShell as a whole is still well out of my comfort zone, but if I were starting from scratch in learning scripting it would be PowerShell, not Command Prompt.

Yeah i feel a little the same but you can utilise .NET framework with powershell and also combine batch and powershell together when piping.

Only thing i find is different versions of powershell from Win7 to Win10 and server08 up.

With batch files most commands have been around for donkey’s years.

In saying that, that right click menu option on that script above is very handy and i also have a few more for printing directory etc straight to printer.