DEL /Q?

[vefatica]

I did something screwy and wound up with a lot of 0-byte files in v:\. So I gave the command

do file in /a:-d * (if %@filesize[%file] == 0 del /q %file)

It deleted all but one quietly. The very last one was named with the single Greek letter Pi. When it got to that file, I got

V:\π : Are you sure (Y/N)? ^C

Now it's the only one left, and ...

v:\> do file in /a:-d * (if %@filesize[%file] == 0 (echo %file & del /q %file))
 
π
V:\π : Are you sure (Y/N)? ^C

 

[rconn]

What are the attributes for that file?

What is the ASCII (or Unicode?) value for that character, and what font & code page are you using?

And what does CMD.EXE do?

 

[vefatica]

The only attribute is "A". The character is 0xE3 in code page 437 (when I redirect DIR to a file and hexedit it). CMD deletes it (quietly). Now it's gone.

Odd ... DIR showed me the Greek letter Pi but when I ECHO %i for i=128 to 255, I don't see Pi at all (227 shows "a").

 

[vefatica]

So I tried "echos > %@char[227]". Now DIR shows me a 0-byte file named "a". And DIR also shows me a directory named "a"!!!!!

I'm sure ... I have been seeing a file named Pi (the single Greek letter) for a few days.

 

[vefatica]

With the help of CharMap and Explorer (renaming), I got it back ... name ... the single character U+03A0 (uppercase pi). DIR shows me the Greek letter. I can't get that with @CHAR[] and CP 437. Redirect DIR to a file and I get (again) char 227. DEL /Q behaves as before.

 

[Charles Dye]

C:\Test>echo foo > %@char[960]
 
C:\Test>dir
 
Volume in drive C is Windows XP    Serial number is cc26:8769
Directory of  C:\Test\*
 
3/05/2012  7:29        <DIR>    .
3/05/2012  7:29        <DIR>    ..
3/05/2012  7:29              5  π
                5 bytes in 1 file and 2 dirs    4,096 bytes allocated
  321,569,415,168 bytes free
 
C:\Test>del /q %@char[960]
C:\Test\π : Are you sure (Y/N)? Y
 
C:\Test>

 

[Steve Fabian]

Two suggestions for unrelated aspects.
1/ Why did you not use size range in the DEL command, i.e., /[s0,0], or at least in the DO - much simpler than testing
2/ What happens in the DEL command if you enclose the filename in quotations marks: "Π"?

BTW, CP437 includes lower case greek π - apparently Windows is "smart enough" to use it to represent its upper case version Π; nice for viewing but not so nice for processing.

 

[vefatica]

There have been a couple updates lately, but this bug remains. Rex, did you figure it out?

C:\Test>echo foo > %@char[960]
 
C:\Test>dir
 
Volume in drive C is Windows XP    Serial number is cc26:8769
Directory of  C:\Test\*
 
3/05/2012  7:29        <DIR>    .
3/05/2012  7:29        <DIR>    ..
3/05/2012  7:29              5  π
                5 bytes in 1 file and 2 dirs    4,096 bytes allocated
  321,569,415,168 bytes free
 
C:\Test>del /q %@char[960]
C:\Test\π : Are you sure (Y/N)? Y
 
C:\Test>

 

[Charles Dye]

You get that odd prompt anytime you specify a filename consisting entirely of characters >= 256:

C:\>del %@char[0x0174]%@char[0x0113]%@char[0x0129]%@char[0x0159]%@char[0x0111]%@char[0x0147]%@char[0
x0103]%@char[0x1e41]%@char[0x0119]
C:\ŴēĩřđŇăṁę : Are you sure (Y/N)? Y
TCC: (Sys) The system cannot find the file specified.
 "C:\ŴēĩřđŇăṁę"
     0 files deleted

C:\>

/Q has no effect, and the file need not exist.

 

[vefatica]

Off topic, but ...
I'm surprised what characters I can see with CP 437 and a raster font. Do you know a way (easier, more direct than below) to see all of them? I think I'm seeing all of them (that are printable with ECHO ... except '?') with this:

(for /l %i in (0,1,65535) echo %i %@char[%i]) | grepp /v \?

But they're spread out all over the Unicode range in no predictable manner.

 

[Charles Dye]

If you're ECHOing to the console, I don't think your code page enters into it at all. The console is Unicode, TCC is Unicode; I think the code page is only relevant when you're piping or redirecting with //UnicodeOutput=No. The real limiting factor to what you see is probably your font(s); the raster fonts probably don't include Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic, Thai....

Instead of 0 to 65535, you probably ought to iterate over 32-65533; and skip the ranges 128-159 (control characters) and 55296-57343 (surrogates).