Xcopy file or directory switch

Overview The bit operation is a one-yuan and binary operation of the alignment mode or the binary number in the program design. On many ancient microprocessors, the bit operation is faster than the ad I am troubled because of work, I am happy because of trouble I don't know the xcopy command, so I want to write a funct Collectives on Stack Overflow.

Learn more. Asked 6 years, 1 month ago. Active 10 months ago. Viewed k times. Testuser Testuser 1 1 gold badge 6 6 silver badges 14 14 bronze badges.

Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Very good answer. I just want to add that F for file and D for directory are only the right characters on English Windows. If an OS language independent solution is needed for copying a single file with xcopy which can't be copied with copy , look on batch code on this answer on BATCH file asks for file or folder. Adding the slash to the end of the target directory fixed it for me.

It no longer asks if the path is a file or directory. Paul Paul 5 5 silver badges 2 2 bronze badges. I keep seeing this as a suggestion and I have to say after testing it, it doesn't work as advertised. I recommend using the piping method instead which is kind of silly, but it works. I wish that there was a switch that just said "It's always a file" or "It's always a directory". Dominique Dominique This copy mode is helpful, especially when backing up encrypted files to network shares or non- Encrypting File System EFS volumes.

In some situations, backup scripts or programs may require you to pre-provision the destination before copying the files from the source. When needed, you can use Xcopy to replicate the source folder structure without the content.

If something can go wrong, it probably will. Below are the common Xcopy errors that you might encounter. To avoid this error, when typing a source or destination path that contains space characters, you should surround the path with double-quotes. This error happens if the source directory you are copying also includes the target directory. In this case, Xcopy would enter a loop, causing an error.

When using Xcopy, the destination must be a fully independent directory or disk if you copy all directories and subdirectories. For example, the command below has a missing closing double-quote character in the destination path. Xcopy returns an exit code for an operation, which you can use to determine if the operation was successful.

Exit codes are useful, especially if your task or script takes actions based on the exit code it receives. Your code can then examine the value of this variable to determine the outcome of the Xcopy operation.

Apart from using Xcopy interactively, you can reap its benefits better if you use it to automate tasks with scripts. Below are a couple of examples that demonstrate how you can use Xcopy in scripts. This example batch script copies all files recursively with error-handling logic.

And based on the error or exit code, the script returns a message showing the reason for the error. To create the batch file, open a text or code editor of your choice, copy the code below, paste it to your editor, and save the file as copycomplete.

Next, to run the script, invoke its name in the command prompt or PowerShell, followed by the source and destination folders. Xcopy has no built-in functionality to move files and folders from the source to the destination. But, as a workaround, you can create a script that would Xcopy the files first and then delete the files from the source. The code below will copy the files to the destination. And if the copy process was successful, the script will delete the files at the source.

Copy the code below and save it in a new file called movefiles. Next, to execute the movefiles. If your job involves copying files in bulk or creating file backups, Xcopy is an excellent tool to help make your job easier.

Xcopy delivers accurate and fast file copy results with many options to customize its behavior to fit your requirements. Get this interactive comic book to learn how Veeam and AWS can help you fight ransomware, data sprawl, rising cloud costs, unforeseen data loss and make you a hero! ATA is known for its high-quality written tutorials in the form of blog posts. Adam the Automator.

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Meet Our Sponsors. Looks like you're offline! Copy files that have the archive attribute. Copy files with the archive attribute set, then switches off the archive attribute at the destination.