batch script - run command on each file in directory

Question

I need to convert some xls files into xlsx files. I can successfully convert one xls file into xlsx by running this command into cmd prompt (windows):

ssconv         


        

Answer 1

for /r %%v in (*.xls) do ssconvert "%%v" "%%vx"

a couple have people have asked me to explain this, so:

Part 1: for /r %%v in (*.xls)

This part returns an array of files in the current directory that have the xls extension. The %% may look a little curious. This is basically the special % character from command line as used in %PATH% or %TEMP%. To use it in a batch file we need to escape it like so: %%PATH%% or %%TEMP%%. In this case we are simply escaping the temporary variable v, which will hold our array of filenames.

We are using the /r switch to search for files recursively, so any matching files in child folders will also be located.

Part 2: do ssconvert "%%v" "%%vx"

This second part is what will get executed once per matching filename, so if the following files were present in the current folder:

c:\temp\mySheet.xls, c:\temp\mySheet_yesterday.xls, c:\temp\mySheet_20160902.xls

the following commands would be executed:

ssconvert "c:\temp\mySheet.xls" "c:\temp\mySheet.xlsx" ssconvert "c:\temp\mySheet_yesterday.xls" "c:\temp\mySheet_yesterday.xlsx" ssconvert "c:\temp\mySheet_20160902.xls" "c:\temp\mySheet_20160902.xlsx"