Using wildcards with the rd command inside for

I want to delete all folders starting with "machine.contoso.com" (including all subfolders and files). I tried this command:

I get an error, though :(

cd c:\Program Files\Software\Temp
for /f %i in ('dir /a:d /s /b machine.contoso.com*') do rd /s /q %i

error:

rd /s /q C:\Program
The system cannot find the file specified.

Folder Structure:

machine.contoso.com_1611940173
machine.contoso.com_1611323243
machine.contoso.com_1611645665
machine.contoso.com_1611940176
machine.contoso.com_1611940177
HOSTNAME.contoso.com_com_1811940177
HOSTNAME.contoso.com_com_1813435435
HOSTNAME.contoso.com_com_1811940456
HOSTNAME.contoso.com_com_1811345463
HOSTNAME.contoso.com_com_1813523454

thanks,

Solution 1:

You can replace your For /F to For /R /D

cd /d  "C:\Program Files\Software\Temp\" && for /r /d %i in (*contoso*)do rmdir /q /s "%~dpnxi"

You can use the For /D /R loop, which will go through all the folders, and in each folder inside the loop, use the RMDir command to delete the current folder in the loop and all files/subfolders.

• FOR /R - Loop through files (recursively)
  FOR /D - Loop through several folders/directories

• The option /D /R is undocumented, but can be a useful combination,
  while it will recurse through all subfolders the wildcard will only
  match against Folder/Directory names (not filenames)
  Note: Source linked to ss64.com

Obs. 1 You can use machine.contoso.com*, m*.contoso.com*, m*.c*.com.*, m*.c*.c*.*, etc... in your loop for loop ..(strings)do...

Obs. 2 But keep in mind that you will probably need to run as an administrator to delete items in %ProgramFiles%.

• Some further reading:

  • For Loop

  • For /D Loop

  • For /R Loop

  • Conditional Execution || && ...