IT Question

I'm sure there's an easier way, but here's the old-school way:

Assume myfile.doc is in the directory you're making the student directories off of.

Make this batchfile. Call it anything you want, but for this example I'll call it FOO.BAT

Assuming each student has the directory as first initial, last name, for example when making Suzanne Smith's directory, enter the command

FOO SSMITH

It will then create said directory and copy said file into it. It will work no matter what format you create the directories with as long as it's one string. (ie, FOO SUZANNES, or even FOO SUZANNE.SMITH).

Of course, if you've already created the directories, you're out of luck.

 

UNIX shell (sh, ksh, or bash):

$ for i in /path/to/2014/*; do
> cp /path/to/myfile.doc $i
> done
$

 

There are many other ways to do this from a Windows computer. If all the directories already exist, it's possbile to have a batch file find each of them and put the file there. It's also possible to have a list of student names and/or corresponding directory names in a text file. A batch file can process this text file and do whatever you want for each line in there.

The trick to all this is the FOR command.
MS documentation on using "FOR"

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Renocat @ Apr 17 2007, 06:09 PM) [snapback]424993[/snapback]</div>

Renocat try this, it's less than 20 and has a trial version. . . Also why can't you e-mail the little darlings the file, MS Outlook can do groups and you can ask for a receive and read receipt for confirmation.

http://www.sobolsoft.com/copyfiles/

 

Have the administrator establish a directory on the server for you to place the one file. Have the administrator make a global logon command for each student to access the directory and script a download to their desktop. Usually if there is a distribution requirement on a managed network the administrator will take care of it in the same way patches and updates are applied and pushed down to the desktop level.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Apr 17 2007, 10:17 PM) [snapback]425054[/snapback]</div>

Yeah, if the directories are already created, that won't work. what you'll have to do is:

foo.bat:

put foo in the main directory that contains all of your students directories. run it, and it'll first create the temp.txt file, which will simply be a listing of all the directories in that folder (ie all of the student's directories). Then the for loop will loop over that file and copy the test.txt file into all of the folders listed in it.

The shell script will work perfectly if you have access to a unix shell to do it on.

 

Wow, what a hole in O/S's that they can't handle this with a normal copy command! Wildcards work for the origin; why do the O/Ss fail to accept them for the destination? This syntax fails in DOS mode:

Copy MYFILE.TXT TOPDIR\*\MYFILE.TXT

... but there's no good reason why it should!

I seem to recall being able to do this in VMS on DEC mainframes back in the early 80s with syntax as above. Not that it helps here.

Well, good luck with whatever kludge it takes to do the deed! And I'm sorry I can't offer anything better than what's alreadly been suggested.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Renocat @ Apr 18 2007, 07:11 AM) [snapback]425268[/snapback]</div>

StevO is "Da Man" today! :lol: Now git back to Folding becuase your slacking!

Wildkow

p.s. BTW isn't Novell owned by a Linux OS Company and doesn't it have a very similar command line structure to Linux/Unix??

 

I agree airportkid... it's a rather large hole that really shouldn't be there... every time you're putting in a file path, it *should* go to the same parser, which then by default would recognize the wildcards. There's really no reason no to do it that way... but then again, there's a reason it's called DOS!