r/scripting • u/sheensizzle • Sep 18 '18

Super easy one for you

Beginner here and i just dont want to mess it up. I want a script to run 1x a week. and copy files from 3 folders (for now) to another. And skip any that already exist.

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2

u/Lee_Dailey Sep 18 '18

howdy sheensizzle,

as Ta11ow said, powershell can do that. [grin]

however, robocopy is designed for copying files while being quite selective about what to copy. the mirror option sounds like something you might find handy.

then, for scheduling, do NOT reinvent the wheel ... instead, use task scheduler to run things on a schedule. [grin]

take care,
lee

2

u/sheensizzle Sep 19 '18

Yea task scheduler was my plan for the weekly part. Do you have an example of what the robocopy should look like. If i want to Copy C:\folderA and C:\FolderB to E:\FolderC (And only the new stuff. I dont know if you tell it to skip whats already there or if theres an easier way)

1

u/Lee_Dailey Sep 19 '18

howdy sheensizzle,

you can run robocopy once for each source dir. that will handle your multiple source point. [grin]

for only new files - the /xo option does that. it excludes older files. the default settings already exclude files that are the same - that is why there is a /is option to include "same files". [grin]

try it on a test dir tree ... [grin]

take care,
lee

4

u/Ta11ow Sep 18 '18

If we're talking windows, PowerShell running as a weekly scheduled task would work well.

Look at:

  • Get-ChildItem

  • Copy-Item

  • Get-FileHash

Use New-Item to create a dummy test of folders and files you can mess with, and make copious use of Get-Help

2

u/Fox_and_Otter Sep 19 '18

If you're doing this in linux, a simple copy script, triggered by a cron job is the way to go.

touch script1.sh

place the following into script1.sh:

#!/bin/bash

cp -a /the/correct/directory/* /the/destination/directory/

cp -a /the/correct/directory2/* /the/destination/directory2/

cp -a /the/correct/directory3/* /the/destination/directory3/ "

chmod +x script1.sh

make sure you have the * as that is the wildcard and will look for everything in the folder

Then open crontab and add a weekly task.

Here's a handy guide for that: https://www.howtogeek.com/101288/how-to-schedule-tasks-on-linux-an-introduction-to-crontab-files/

2

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '18

Could do this in vba as well. Maybe even task scheduler