I have share on a server in which i have files being saved to. I need to purge this folder every so often of files that are no older then 2 days. I have found a batch file to do this. How ever on the share there are a ton of subdirectories, and my batch file only deletes in the root directory. Can someone help me out? i need to delete all of the files on that share including the files in the sub directories...What i have so far... ________ @echo off SET OLDERTHAN=%1 IF NOT DEFINED OLDERTHAN GOTO SYNTAX set FileDir=%~2 if "%FileDir%"=="" set FileDir=. for /f "tokens=2" %%i in ('date /t') do set thedate=%%i set mm=%thedate:~0,2% set dd=%thedate:~3,2% set yyyy=%thedate:~6,4% set /A dd=%dd% - %OLDERTHAN% set /A mm=%mm% + 0 :LOOPDATE if /I %dd% GTR 0 goto DONE set /A mm=%mm% - 1 if /I %mm% GTR 0 goto ADJUSTDAY set /A mm=12 set /A yyyy=%yyyy% - 1 :ADJUSTDAY if %mm%==1 goto SET31 if %mm%==2 goto LEAPCHK if %mm%==3 goto SET31 if %mm%==4 goto SET30 if %mm%==5 goto SET31 if %mm%==6 goto SET30 if %mm%==7 goto SET31 if %mm%==8 goto SET31 if %mm%==9 goto SET30 if %mm%==10 goto SET31 if %mm%==11 goto SET30 if %mm%==12 goto SET31 :SET31 set /A dd=31 + %dd% goto LOOPDATE :SET30 set /A dd=30 + %dd% goto LOOPDATE :LEAPCHK set /A tt=%yyyy% %% 4 if not %tt%==0 goto SET28 set /A tt=%yyyy% %% 100 if not %tt%==0 goto SET29 set /A tt=%yyyy% %% 400 if %tt%==0 goto SET29 :SET28 set /A dd=28 + %dd% goto LOOPDATE :SET29 set /A dd=29 + %dd% :DONE if /i %dd% LSS 10 set dd=0%dd% if /I %mm% LSS 10 set mm=0%mm% for %%i in (%FileDir%\*.*) do (set FileName=%%i call :PROCESSFILE %%~ti) set mm= set yyyy= set dd= set thedate= goto EXIT :SYNTAX ECHO. ECHO USAGE: ECHO DELOLD X [Dir] ECHO Where: echo X is the number of days previous to Today. echo Dir is the optional directory where files exist. Defaults to current directory. ECHO. ECHO EX: "DELOLD 5" Deletes files older than 5 days. echo "DELOLD 120 c:\temp Deletes files from the c:\temp directory that are older echo than 120 days. GOTO EXIT :PROCESSFILE set temp=%1 set fyyyy=%temp:~6% if /I %fyyyy% LSS 100 set fyyyy=20%fyyyy% if /I %fyyyy% GTR 2069 set fyyyy=19%temp:~6% set fmm=%temp:~0,2% set fdd=%temp:~3,2% :: +*************************************+ :: | This is where the files are deleted | :: | Change the ECHO command to DEL to | :: | delete. ECHO is used for test. | :: +*************************************+ if /I %yyyy%/%mm%/%dd% GEQ %fyyyy%/%fmm%/%fdd% (echo %FileName%) set temp= set fyyyy= set fmm= set fdd= :EXIT ___________________ chrispie

Hi chrispie, Likes like you've done a good job of hammering out the 'date math'. It neatly laid out and commented. Without spending a bunch of time plowing through it and tailoring it to my DATE layout... Could it be as simple as using DEL/S ? Or am I missing something here? If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2

You might want to consider using a language that is better suited for this task. My preference would be to use Perl. Perl can do in 1 line of code everything that your current batch file does, excluding the echo statements. The echo statements would be about the same, but Perl can even do that part in fewer lines. Perl can also very easily traverse a directory tree and delete only the desired files.

I've tried the Del /S command and it doesn't work for some reason. Can't figure it out. I'm no programming guru by any means. As for Pearl I've never seen it, so i'm not sure. chrispie

Hi Chrispie Give this a try, I've changed the date variables around, I'm english, to suit your american date format. Change the For Loop data for your directory or file extensions. ie. for /r i:\xtemp %%a in (*.*) do call :CheckAge %%~sa %%~ta or for /r i:\xtemp %%a in (*.txt) do call :CheckAge %%~sa %%~ta Any problems or questions just post here. ============================================= @echo off Rem Get Todays Date for /f "tokens=1-3 delims=/- " %%a in ('date /t') do ( set mm=%%a set dd=%%b set yy=%%c ) Rem Calculate Julian Date set /a mm=%mm%+1 if %mm% LSS 3 ( set /a mm=%mm%+12 set /a yy=%yy%-1 ) set /a jd1=%dd%+(%mm%*306001/10000)+(%yy%*1461/4) Rem Process Files for /r i:\xtemp %%a in (*.*) do call :CheckAge %%~sa %%~ta exit /b Rem Check Age Of Each File :CheckAge %1 %2 set XDate=%2 set yy=%XDate:~6,4% set dd=%XDate:~3,2% if %dd% LSS 10 set mm=%XDate:~1,1% set mm=!XDate:~0,2! if %mm% LSS 10 set dd=%XDate:~1,1% set /a mm=%mm%+1 if %mm% LSS 3 ( set /a mm=%mm%+12 set /a yy=%yy%-1 ) set /a jd2=%dd%+(%mm%*306001/10000)+(%yy%*1461/4) set /a Age=%jd1%-%jd2% echo %1 is %Age% Days Old if %Age% GTR 2 ( echo %1 Would Be Deleted Rem Deleted Out for Safety rem del %1 /p ) echo.

Here is a Perl script that does the same as your batch file i.e., it only works on the one directory and only prints the filenames, it does not delete them. To delete the files, all we need to do is change 'print "$_\n"' to 'unlink $_' #!perl -w use strict; usage() if (! @ARGV || $ARGV[0] =~ /\D/); my $age = $ARGV[0]; my $dir = $ARGV[1] || '.'; while (<$dir/*>) { print "$_\n" if -M $_ > $age; } sub usage { print <<'EOF'; USAGE: DELOLD X [Dir] Where: X is the number of days previous to Today. Dir is the optional directory where files exist. Defaults to current directory. EX: "DELOLD 5" Deletes files older than 5 days. "DELOLD 120 c:\temp" Deletes files from the c:\temp directory that are older than 120 days. EOF } Here's the modified version that desends into each sub directory. #!perl -w use strict; use File::Find; usage() if (! @ARGV || $ARGV[0] =~ /\D/); my $age = $ARGV[0]; my $dir = $ARGV[1] || '.'; find(sub { print "$_\n" if -M $_ > $age; }, $dir); sub usage { print <<'EOF'; USAGE: DELOLD X [Dir] Where: X is the number of days previous to Today. Dir is the optional directory where files exist. Defaults to current directory. EX: "DELOLD 5" Deletes files older than 5 days. "DELOLD 120 c:\temp" Deletes files from the c:\temp directory that are older than 120 days. EOF }

If you want to leave out the usage statement, it can be done as a single line from the command prompt instead of the script.