Question

I had a batch script that rename files inside the folder which looked like this:

ren B:\Backups\*.bc_ *.bc

Now I have files between many folders, the back up creates a new folder with a new name every day, and i need to rename files across several folders.
How can I do it? How to correctly use wild card in this case?

Answer 1

You cannot use a wildcard in the path in your REN statement. You will have to use some form of the FOR command.

Suppose you want to rename all *.bc_ files in the entire folder hierarchy rooted at B:\Backups.

You could use FOR /R to iterate all .bc_ files within the hierarchy and rename each file individually.

for /r "B:\Backups" %%F in (*.bc_) do ren "%%F" "%%~nF.bc"

Or you could use FOR /D /R to iterate all the folders under the root and run your wildcard REN against each of the folders

for /d /r "B:\Backups" %%F in (.) do ren "%%F\*.bc_" *.bc

Both of the commands above are designed to be used in a batch script. Change each double percent into a single percent if you want to run the command from the command line instead of from within a batch file.