Vista - Help understanding one liner

folks

I'm trying to understand the following one liner (in order to
eventually amend it)

for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir /s /b *.pdf 2^>NUL') do echo %%a

I understand what it does (list all pdf files in a file structure) but
not how. Not even sure it's vbscript (sorry . Tried to google it
without much success (probably because "for" is a pretty common
term...).

Anyway some pointer / help would be much appreciated

Regards

alex

AlexT. wrote:It's not VBScript; it's a batch command.

Open the Command Prompt and type "for /?" for documentation or read
<http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/for.mspx>

--
Steve

Those who know how to win are much more numerous than those who know how
to make proper use of their victories. -Polybius

"AlexT." <google@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:97bc4c3a-357f-430c-8276-305aab78c522@xxxxxxAlex, as others mentioned, this is batch code not vbscript. To understand
how it works is going to take more than a pointer to read FOR/? help.
Actually, this is three commands on one line. FOR, DIR and ECHO but lets
look at the DIR command first.

dir /s /b *.pdf

This returns a bare directory output of all .pdf files in current and all
subdirectories. The /b tells DIR to return a bare listing (filenames only)
and the /s tells it to recurs subdirectories (this returns the full file
paths). The 2^>NUL hides any error messages. Actually, 2>NUL hides error
messages but since the command is nested within the FOR command, the output
symbol > needs to be escaped with a ^ caret. Because the FOR command used
the /f switch, this allows the FOR command to execute the DIR command
because it is enclosed within single quotes. The output of DIR is fed to the
FOR command for processing. The "tokens=*" tells the FOR command to pass
each line of output irrespective of any spaces or other delimiter
characters. The ECHO command tells it to send the output to screen.

For further information, read the help from these commands.

FOR/?
DIR/?
ECHO/?

--
Todd Vargo
(Post questions to group only. Remove "z" to email personal messages)

On Aug 28, 6:48*am, "Todd Vargo" <tlva...@xxxxxx> wrote:Todd: thanks a bunch ! Most helpfull - I actually managed to
understand this one and to amend it to my liking