SS64 Forum

wquatan

Member

Registered: 19 Jun 2012

Posts: 16

Process first 3 instead of skip in "for /f"

Related to
http://ss64.com/nt/for_f.html

for /f "tokens=* skip=3" %%F in ('dir %myDir% /o-d /tc /b') do del %myDir%\%%F
skips the first 3 files and processes all the others

I need just the opposite : processing the first 3 and skipping all the others

How could this been done ?

Thanks

foxidrive

Member

Registered: 04 Apr 2013

Posts: 339

Re: Process first 3 instead of skip in "for /f"

You can count the number of files with find and then subtract three, reverse the sort in the for loop and use the resulting number in the skip field.

Or use delayedexpansion and a counter in the loop, only deleting until the counter is up to 3.

Or this will give you the first three in variables:

@echo off
set "file=%temp%\file.txt"
dir %myDir% /o-d /tc /b >"%file%"
(
set /p delfile1=
set /p delfile2=
set /p delfile3=
)<"%file%"
set delfile
del "%file%"
pause & goto :EOF

DigitalSnow

Member

From: United States

Registered: 27 Dec 2012

Posts: 24

Re: Process first 3 instead of skip in "for /f"

for /f "tokens=1,* delims=[]" %A in ('dir /b ^| find /n /v ""') do @if %A leq 3 @echo %B

wquatan

Member

Registered: 19 Jun 2012

Posts: 16

Re: Process first 3 instead of skip in "for /f"

Thank you folks !
Exactly what I needed to proceed