VBScript to move file with wildcard, if it exists

Question

I am attempting to create a script that checks for the existence of archived eventlog files and, if any files exist, moves them to another folder. Running this script does nothing and gives no errors. I believe the wildcard in the If statement is what is giving me issues. I am new to vbscript, and scripting in general, and would appreciate some advice.

Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
If (fso.FileExists("d:\eventlogs\Archive*.evtx")) Then
    FSO.CopyFile "d:\eventlogs\Archive*.evtx" , "d:\eventlogs\archive\"
    FSO.Deletefile "d:\eventlogs\archive*.evtx"
End if

Why `VBScript` when `DOS` batch files can do the above simplier? — Stephen Quan, Jan 03 '14 at 15:31

score 4 · Answer 1 · edited Mar 25 '18 at 21:25

You can replicate a wild card search by using a combination of instr() and right(), or just multiple instr().

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
objStartFolder = "d:\eventlogs\"

Set objFolder = objFSO.GetFolder(objStartFolder)

Set colFiles = objFolder.Files
For Each objFile in colFiles
   if instr(objFile.Name,"Archive") <> 0 AND instr(objFile.Name,".evtx") <> 0 then
       objFSO.MoveFile objFile.Name, "archive\" + objFile.Name
   end if
Next

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 03 '14 at 15:35

2

The appropriate approach of finding files with wildcards in VBScript:

Get the file collection from the containing folder
For each file in the filecollection:
Test the filename with a regular expression on a certain pattern
If the test passes, do some action with this file
Next file

answered Jan 03 '14 at 15:35

AutomatedChaos

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In this case I'd string comparisons for extension and the beginning of the filename might be easier to handle than a regular expression. – Ansgar Wiechers Jan 03 '14 at 22:07

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 02 '19 at 16:32

Late answer, but might be useful because apparently nobody spotted the mistake.

From the VBScript documentation (script56.chm in my case), help page for CopyFile method says:

FileExists Method

Returns True if a specified file exists; False if it does not.

object.FileExists(filespec)

Arguments

object

Required. Always the name of a FileSystemObject.

filespec

Required. The name of the file whose existence is to be determined. A complete path specification (either absolute or relative) must be provided if the file isn't expected to exist in the current folder.

Hence your expression fso.FileExists("d:\eventlogs\Archive*.evtx") returns False here; indeed there isn't any file named Archive*.evtx in your folder.

Either you remove your test, but you'll have to deal with the error the CopyFile method might generate, as doc says:

An error also occurs if a source using wildcard characters doesn't match any files.

As suggested by @automatedchaos in his answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/20907209/666414 you can also loop through files of the folder and decide what to do whenever the filename/extension matches your pattern.

Lastly, you can mix both solutions: loop through files of the folder, then set a flag to True and Exit Loop as soon as you encounter an expected file, then use the CopyFile method.

Like this:

With CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
    For Each objFile in .GetFolder("d:\eventlogs\").Files
        If Left(objFile.Name, 7) = "Archive" And .GetExtensionName(objFile) = "evtx" Then
            archiveFound = True
        End If
    Next

    If archiveFound Then
        .CopyFile "d:\eventlogs\Archive*.evtx", "d:\eventlogs\archive\"
        .DeleteFile "d:\eventlogs\Archive*.evtx"
    End If
End With

Note the wildcards work with the DeleteFile method too!

VBScript to move file with wildcard, if it exists

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