WAD Weird REN bug

[samintz]

I ran into an issue the other day with REN. It seems the issue exists in V16 as well as V17.

I had a handful of files named ECCTOOL* and I wanted to rename then to FKTOOL*.

The rename seems to take place in-place and characters are left over or removed. Since FK has 1 fewer letter than ECC the resulting renamed file has an extra character.

ECCTool ==> FKTooll

When I went to rename them back, I used REN FK* ECC* and it replaced FKT with ECC resulting in files named ECCool* instead of ECCTool*.

 

[rconn]

WAD -- and welcome to the wonderful and always wacky world of CMD compatibility!

Use regular expressions (and back references) instead of wildcards for this kind of renaming.

 

[vefatica]

It goes back farther that that. It's probably WAD.

v:\> ver

4NT  8.02.106  Windows Vista [Version 6.1.7601]

v:\> touch /c abcdefgh
2014-11-13 11:16:48.199  V:\abcdefgh

v:\> ren ab* xyz*
V:\abcdefgh -> V:\xyzdefgh
  1 file renamed

v:\> ren xyz* ab**
V:\xyzdefgh -> V:\abzdefgh
  1 file renamed

 

[Jay Sage]

I wrote a BTM script that I call REN-SUB, to handle this. Here is the syntax message it produces when invoked with too few arguments:

TCC(17.00.52): C:\commands\bat>ren_sub

This program renames files by substituting one string for another the
first time it occurs in the name. The syntax is as follows:

SYNTAX: REN_SUB filespec old_string new_string [/n]

For example,

REN_SUB abc13-def.txt 13 2013

would result in the file being renamed to abc2013-def.txt

If there is an optional fourth argument, /n, then the command only echos
the rename commands that would be performed.

Here is the script contents (suggestions for improvements are most welcome!):

@echo off

if %# LT 3 goto syntax

set testflag=0

if "%4" EQ "/n" set testflag=1

set strlen=%@len[%2]

do file in /a:-d-h %1

  set startpos=%@index[%file,%2]
  if %startpos EQ -1 iterate

  echo.
  set continuepos=%@eval[%startpos + %strlen]
  set newname=%@instr[0,%startpos,%file]%3%@instr[%continuepos,%file]

  iff %testflag EQ 0 then
  *ren %file %newname
  else
  echo `  `*ren %file %newname
  endiff

enddo

quit

:syntax

text

  This program renames files by substituting one string for another the
  first time it occurs in the name. The syntax is as follows:

endtext

echo `  `SYNTAX: REN_SUB filespec old_string new_string [/n]

text

  For example,

  REN_SUB abc13-def.txt 13 2013

  would result in the file being renamed to abc2013-def.txt

  If there is an optional fourth argument, /n, then the command only echos
  the rename commands that would be performed.
endtext

quit

 

[samintz]

I tried the following rename command and got mixed results. It basically just renamed one file.

11/12/2014  16:12           8,192  FKtool.exe
11/12/2014  16:12             381  FKtool.exe.intermediate.manifest
11/12/2014  19:09              85  FKtool.lastbuildstate
11/12/2014  19:09          72,442  FKtool.obj
11/12/2014  16:12         273,408  FKtool.pdb
11/11/2014  20:45             713  FKtool.vcxprojResolveAssemblyReference.cache
11/11/2014  20:45               0  FKtool.write.1.tlog
11/12/2014  19:09           9,728  FKtool64.exe
11/12/2014  19:09             381  FKtool64.exe.intermediate.manifest
11/12/2014  19:09         265,216  FKtool64.pdb

ren ::FK(.*) ::ECC\1

11/11/2014  20:45             713  ECCtool.vcxprojResolveAssemblyReference.cache
11/12/2014  16:12           8,192  FKtool.exe
11/12/2014  16:12             381  FKtool.exe.intermediate.manifest
11/12/2014  19:09              85  FKtool.lastbuildstate
11/12/2014  19:09          72,442  FKtool.obj
11/12/2014  16:12         273,408  FKtool.pdb
11/11/2014  20:45               0  FKtool.write.1.tlog
11/12/2014  19:09           9,728  FKtool64.exe
11/12/2014  19:09             381  FKtool64.exe.intermediate.manifest
11/12/2014  19:09         265,216  FKtool64.pdb

 

[samintz]

Just to clarify, that rename command says it renamed 9 files. But it actually only renamed 1.

It works correctly in V16

 

[rconn]

It's a bug in a copy constructor in the RTL. I've patched around it for build 53.