03-21-11 - ClipCD

Copy current dir to clipboard :

c:\bat>type clipcd.bat
@echo off
cechonr "clip " > s:\t.bat
cd >> s:\t.bat
REM type r:\t.bat
s:\t.bat

(cechonr is my variant of "echo" that doesn't put a \n on the end).

I'm sure it could be done easier, but I've always enjoyed this crufty way of making complex batch files by having them write a new batch file. For example I've long done my own savedir/recalldir this way :

c:\bat>type savedir.bat
@echo off
cd > r:\t1.z
cd \
cd > r:\t2.z
zcopy -o c:\bat\echo_off.bat r:\t3.z
attrib -r r:\t3.z
type r:\t2.z >> r:\t3.z
cechonr "cd " >> r:\t3.z
type r:\t1.z >> r:\t3.z
zcopy -o r:\t3.z c:\bat\recalldir.bat
echo cls >> c:\bat\recalldir.bat
call dele r:\t1.z r:\t2.z r:\t3.z
call recalldir.bat

Less useful now that most CLI's have a proper pushdir/popdir. But this is a bit different because it actually makes a file on disk (recalldir.bat), I use it to set my "home" dir and my dos startup bat runs recalldir.

In other utility news, my CLI utils (move,copy,etc) have a new option which everyone should copy - when you have a duplicate name, you can ask it to check for binary identity right there in the prompt :

r:\>zc aikmi.BMP z
 R:\z\aikmi.BMP exists; overwrite? (y/n/A/N/u/U/c/C)?
  (y=yes, n=no, A=all,N=none,u=update newer,U=all,c=check same,C=all)
 R:\z\aikmi.BMP exists; overwrite? (y/n/A/N/u/U/c/C)c
CheckFilesSame : same
 R:\z\aikmi.BMP exists; overwrite? (y/n/A/N/u/U/c/C)y
R:\aikmi.BMP -> R:\z\aikmi.BMP

And of course like all good prompts, for each choice there is a way to say "do this for every prompt".

(BTW if you want a file copier for backing up big dirs, robocopy is quite good. The only problems is the default number of retries is no good, when you hit files with problems it will just hang forever (well, 30 million seconds anyway, which is essentially forever) You need to use /R:10 and /W:10 or something like that).