Windows 7 / Getting Started

Processing Directories

The for command has several variations that change the way it interprets the contents of the listed set of names.

The variation for /d %variable in (set) do command works much like the standard for command, except that wildcards in set match only directory names.You can use this variation to perform a command or run a batch file in any or all of the subfolders of particular folders. For example, on Windows 7,

for /d %d in ("%homepath%\Documents\My Music\*.*") do echo %d

lists the names of all the subfolders under the user's My Music folder.

Processing Files in Directories and Subdirectories

The variation for /r path %variable in (set) do command runs the complete for command in the directory named by path and then in each of its subdirectories and their subdirectories, and so on.The wildcard matching operation on set is performed in each of these directories. For example, the command

for /r c:\data %x in (*.txt) do notepad %x

visits the folder c:\data and each of its subfolders, and in each one, it runs a copy of Notepad to display and edit every .txt file it finds. (This can open a lot of copies of Notepad.)

[Previous] [Contents] [Next]

In this tutorial:

  1. The CMD Command-Line
  2. CMD Versus COMMAND
  3. Running CMD
  4. Opening a Command Prompt Window with Administrator Privileges
  5. CMD Options
  6. Disabling Command Extensions
  7. Command-Line Processing
  8. Console Program Input and Output
  9. Using the Console Window
  10. I/O Redirection and Pipes
  11. Copy and Paste in Command Prompt Windows
  12. Command Editing and the History List
  13. Name Completion
  14. Enabling Directory Name Completion
  15. Multiple Commands on One Line
  16. Grouping Commands with Parentheses
  17. Arguments, Commas, and Quotes
  18. Escaping Special Characters
  19. Configuring the CMD Program
  20. The Search Path
  21. Changing the Path
  22. Predefined and Virtual Environment Variables
  23. Setting Default Environment Variables
  24. Built-in Commands
  25. Extended Commands
  26. Listing Files with the Dir Command
  27. Paginating Long Listings
  28. Printing Directory Listings
  29. Sorting Listings
  30. Locating Alternate File Streams
  31. Setting Variables with the Set Command
  32. Conditional Processing with the if Command
  33. Scanning for Files with the for Command
  34. Using the for Command's Variable
  35. Processing Directories
  36. Numerical for Loop
  37. Getting More Information