+1 vote

I'm in the throws of a significant search effort that usually returns hundreds of files and several Gigs of data. Being new to FileLocator Pro Release Build 1271 - 2012.09.25.61158, the only way I have found to get these result files into a directory for further examination is to either right click copy or drag and drop. Both of these methods take a very long time and are prone to failure. Now to the question; is there an option buried somewhere in FileLocator Pro that allows a configuration of some type to redirect the results to a directory of my choosing? If not, I think this would be a viable enhancement for a future release.

Thanks,

Brian Brown

by (55 points)

1 Answer

+1 vote

Update: FileLocator Pro 7.5 or higher

FileLocator Pro 7.5 introduced a Bulk Copy feature, as part of the Export Results functionality, which provides several options for copying a large number of files to a directory of choice:

Bulk Copy

More information can be found here:

Help file: Export Results


Original answer (older versions of FileLocator Pro)

Currently the only other way to copy files is to create a batch script to XCOPY the files to another location. To create the script use the Custom (XSLT) output format and specify a transform similar to the Sample Transform xcopy.xsl:

Export Results

The xcopy.xsl transform creates an XCOPY command for each file replacing just the drive letter and preserves the folder structure, e.g. if the found results were:

c:\folder1\folder2\filename1.txt
c:\folder1\folder2\subfolder\filename2.doc

the generated export would be:

xcopy "c:\folder1\folder2\filename1.txt" "e:\folder1\folder2\*"
xcopy "c:\folder1\folder2\subfolder\filename2.doc" "c:\folder1\folder2\subfolder\*"

The destination drive letter is hard coded in the xcopy.xsl file as E: but can be changed to any drive or folder. Just find the line in the xcopy.xsl file which specifies the destination:

<xsl:text>e:</xsl:text>		<!-- This is the destination drive letter -->

and change it to your destination folder, e.g.

<xsl:text>c:\copy_folder</xsl:text>		<!-- This is the destination drive letter -->

If you want to pass flags to the XCOPY command, e.g. /Y, find the line:

<xsl:text>xcopy "</xsl:text>

and add in the flags you want, e.g.

<xsl:text>xcopy /Y "</xsl:text>

by (30.1k points)

Okay, nice clarification and example, I'll give it a try.

I've also added an item to the Mythicsoft Issue Tracker to improve this for v7 so there is a GUI batch copy option.

Great news Dave, if I may ask a related question just to tag on to this thread, during my current effort using FL Pro and exporting to a .bat the xcopy copy I'm having to reply to a prompt to overwrite or not. I understand that xcopy allows a /Y to pass through the prompt, how would I include such flags in the xsl?

I've modified the answer with flag information.

Thanks Dave, I'll give that a try.

Any luck with the GUI batch copy?
Yes, 7.5 introduced a Bulk Copy feature (answer has been modified).
Sorry I need network searches so I am using Filelocator Network.
Aren't you using the Copy Files dialog?
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