Removing spaces in filenames

  • Thread starter Thread starter giddyup
  • Start date Start date
G

giddyup

Is there a way to remove spaces in filenames in quantities?
Is there some sort of find and replace option to accomplish this
in explorer (my computer)?

I have downloaded a number of images with spaces.

example
Starting;

pict one sideways.jpg
pict two sideways.jpg
pict three sideways.jpg
pict four sideways.jpg
pict five sideways.jpg

Finishing;

pictonesideways.jpg
picttwosideways.jpg
pictthreesideways.jpg
pictfoursideways.jpg
pictfivesideways.jpg

I have hundreds of these to do and the web hosting requires no spaces
help!!!

Thanks
 
giddyup said:
Is there a way to remove spaces in filenames in quantities?
Is there some sort of find and replace option to accomplish this
in explorer (my computer)?

I have downloaded a number of images with spaces.

example
Starting;

pict one sideways.jpg
pict two sideways.jpg
pict three sideways.jpg
pict four sideways.jpg
pict five sideways.jpg

Finishing;

pictonesideways.jpg
picttwosideways.jpg
pictthreesideways.jpg
pictfoursideways.jpg
pictfivesideways.jpg

I have hundreds of these to do and the web hosting requires no spaces
help!!!

Thanks
Click to expand...

I don't think that Explorer has the tools to do this. Here is a way
to do it with a batch file. Copy & past the lines below into a file
called "NoSpaces.bat" which you must store in the same folder
where your .jpg files reside.

@echo off
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
set active=no

set mode=rem
if "%active%"=="yes" set mode=if
dir /b *.txt > "%temp%\dir.txt"
for /F "delims=" %%a in ('type "%temp%\dir.txt"') do (
set old=%%a
set new=!old: =!
if not "!old!"=="!new!" echo ren "!old!" "!new!"
%mode% not "!old!"=="!new!" ren "!old!" "!new!"
)
echo.
echo Press the Space Bar to close this window.
pause > nul

Now use Explorer to navigate to your .jpg folder, then
double-click "Spaces.bat". You will see what the batch
file would do if it was activated.

To activate the batch file, change Line 3 to
set active=yes
(lower case, no additional spaces!)
Now run the batch file again!
 
giddyup said:
Is there a way to remove spaces in filenames in quantities?
Is there some sort of find and replace option to accomplish this
in explorer (my computer)?
Click to expand...

As an aside. One does NOT want spaces in filenames, as the spaces can be
a "non-dos" character.
 
Pegasus said:
I don't think that Explorer has the tools to do this. Here is a way
to do it with a batch file. Copy & past the lines below into a file
called "NoSpaces.bat" which you must store in the same folder
where your .jpg files reside.

@echo off
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
set active=no

set mode=rem
if "%active%"=="yes" set mode=if
dir /b *.txt > "%temp%\dir.txt"
for /F "delims=" %%a in ('type "%temp%\dir.txt"') do (
set old=%%a
set new=!old: =!
if not "!old!"=="!new!" echo ren "!old!" "!new!"
%mode% not "!old!"=="!new!" ren "!old!" "!new!"
)
echo.
echo Press the Space Bar to close this window.
pause > nul

Now use Explorer to navigate to your .jpg folder, then
double-click "Spaces.bat". You will see what the batch
file would do if it was activated.

To activate the batch file, change Line 3 to
set active=yes
(lower case, no additional spaces!)
Now run the batch file again!
Click to expand...
Thanks,
I will do a test try on that. I appreciate the quick response as well.
 
Pegasus (MVP) said:
...
for /F "delims=" %%a in ('type "%temp%\dir.txt"') do (
...
Click to expand...

Um, wouldn't there be a space character after the equals sign for the
delims parameter, as in "delims= "? Otherwise, you are not specifying
any delimiter character(s).

I didn't proof the rest of the script. This just jumped out at me as
I scanned through the script.
 
VanguardLH said:
Um, wouldn't there be a space character after the equals sign for the
delims parameter, as in "delims= "? Otherwise, you are not specifying any
delimiter character(s).

I didn't proof the rest of the script. This just jumped out at me as I
scanned through the script.
Click to expand...

Good point. I spotted the same thing too while monitoring a batch
newsgroup and realised that someone had stumbled on a feature
that is probably undocumented but works very nicely. Using the
"delim=" syntax means "there are no delimiters", hence the variable
%%a will be set to the whole string, no matter what it contains -
which is exactly what we want!
 
in message
...

Good point. I spotted the same thing too while monitoring a batch
newsgroup and realised that someone had stumbled on a feature
that is probably undocumented but works very nicely. Using the
"delim=" syntax means "there are no delimiters", hence the variable
%%a will be set to the whole string, no matter what it contains -
which is exactly what we want!
Click to expand...

Ah, I didn't notice the line:

set new=!old: =!

where you were taking out the spaces from the string. That is, after
the colon delimiter from the variable name, you have the space
character equaling a null character, so the string gets the spaces
removed. On my first glance, I thought you were going to walk through
the string using the for-loop to remove spaces but the 'set' command
is faster.
 
VanguardLH said:
in message


Ah, I didn't notice the line:

set new=!old: =!

where you were taking out the spaces from the string. That is, after the
colon delimiter from the variable name, you have the space character
equaling a null character, so the string gets the spaces removed. On my
first glance, I thought you were going to walk through the string using
the for-loop to remove spaces but the 'set' command is faster.
Click to expand...

Correct. And yes, the string substitution method is much, much faster
than a looping method. However, your method based on joining the
individual tokens to a single string would probably work just as fast.
 
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