Question

I need to write a batch script to find out the full path to any given file’s parent directory. Now, I’m completely new to batch scripts, so I need someone to lend me a hand with this 😛

There is a similar question here on SO, but it’s not what I’m looking for.

Any help is much appreciated!

Answer 1

From http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ben/archive/2007/03/09/path-manipulation-in-a-batch-file.aspx

If %I is your variable:

%~I - expands %I removing any surrounding quotes (")
%~fI - expands %I to a fully qualified path name
%~dI - expands %I to a drive letter only
%~pI - expands %I to a path only
%~nI - expands %I to a file name only
%~xI - expands %I to a file extension only
%~sI - expanded path contains short names only
%~aI - expands %I to file attributes of file
%~tI - expands %I to date/time of file
%~zI - expands %I to size of file
%~$PATH:I - searches the directories listed in the PATH environment variable and expands %I to the fully qualified name of the first one found. If the environment variable name is not
defined or the file is not found by the search, then this modifier expands to the empty string

The modifiers can be combined to get compound results:

%~dpI - expands %I to a drive letter and path only
%~nxI - expands %I to a file name and extension only
%~fsI - expands %I to a full path name with short names only
%~dp$PATH:I - searches the directories listed in the PATH environment variable for %I and expands to the drive letter and path of the first one found.
%~ftzaI - expands %I to a DIR like output line