How can I move files to the Recycle Bin in a Windows batch script or Perl?
Solution 1
use Win32::FileOp qw(Recycle);
Recycle(@ARGV);
Solution 2
Write a VBS script (Original Link) then call it with MyDelScript.vbs
function main()
{
if (WScript.Arguments.length != 1)
{
WScript.Echo("<Insert informative error message here>");
return;
}
var Path = WScript.Arguments(0);
var Shell = WScript.CreateObject("Shell.Application");
var Item = Shell.Namespace(0).ParseName(Path);
Item.InvokeVerb("delete");
}
Solution 3
The Win32::FileOp module has a Recycle
function. From the docs:
Recycle @filenames
Send the files into the recycle bin. You will not get any confirmation dialogs. Returns true if successful.
Solution 4
It can be done like this with plain batch and embedded VBScript. Put the following code into a file called recycle.cmd
:
<!-- : Begin batch script
@echo off
if "%1"=="" (
echo Usage: %~nx0 FILE_TO_RECYCLE[...]
echo This script puts files into the recycle bin
exit /b 1
)
cscript //nologo "%~f0?.wsf" %*
exit /b %errorlevel%
----- Begin embedded wsf script --->
<job><script language="VBScript">
Set app = WScript.CreateObject("Shell.Application")
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
For Each arg In WScript.Arguments
If fso.FileExists(arg) Then
Set file = fso.GetFile(arg)
Set folderItem = app.Namespace(0).ParseName(file.Path)
folderItem.InvokeVerb("delete")
Else
WScript.Echo "File not found: " & arg
End If
Next
</script></job>
Example:
echo This file is dirt.> dirt.txt
echo This file is trash.> trash.txt
recycle dirt.txt trash.txt
As you can see the script allows recycling multiple files with one command. It does not suppport the wildcards * and ? though.
The idea of embedding VBScript inside a batch file is taken from dbenham's answer to Is it possible to embed and execute VBScript within a batch file without using a temporary file? (scroll down to UPDATE 2014-04-27).
Solution 5
UPDATE: Contrary to my original claim that the following code does not work, it indeed seems to work. I just forgot that the file I wanted to delete was not in $ENV{TEMP}
but a subdirectory of $ENV{TEMP}
. The problem is, the file does not go to the Recycle Bin.
The right solution is to use Win32::FileOp but I am going to leave this script here as an example of how to use Win32::API and Win32::API::Struct. I would appreciate it if anyone can point out what I am doing wrong. For your reference:
SHFileOperation
: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb762164(VS.85).aspx
LPSHFILEOPSTRUCT
: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb759795(VS.85).aspx
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use File::Spec::Functions qw( catfile );
use Win32::API;
Win32::API::Struct->typedef(
SHFILEOPSTRUCT => qw(
HWND hwnd;
UINT wFunc;
LPCTSTR pFrom;
LPCTSTR pTo;
FILEOP_FLAGS fFlags;
BOOL fAnyOperationsAborted;
LPVOID hNameMappings;
LPCTSTR lpszProgressTitle;
)
);
Win32::API->Import(
shell32 => q{ int SHFileOperation( LPSHFILEOPSTRUCT lpFileOp ) }
);
my $op = Win32::API::Struct->new( 'SHFILEOPSTRUCT' );
$op->{wFunc} = 0x0003; # FO_DELETE from ShellAPI.h
$op->{fFlags} = 0x0040; # FOF_ALLOWUNDO from ShellAPI.h
my $to_delete = catfile( $ENV{TEMP}, "test.file" );
$op->{pFrom} = $to_delete . "\0\0";
my $result = SHFileOperation( $op );
if ( $result ) {
warn sprintf "The operation failed: %4.4X\n", $result;
}
else {
if ( $op->{fAnyOperationsAborted} ) {
warn "Operation was aborted\n";
}
else {
warn "The operation succeeded\n";
}
}
__END__
l0b0
Author, The newline Guide to Bash Scripting (https://www.newline.co/courses/newline-guide-to-bash-scripting). Hobby (https://gitlab.com/victor-engmark) & work software developer.
Updated on June 28, 2022Comments
-
l0b0 almost 2 years
I've got a Windows XP batch script which cleans some directories, but I would like to move the deleted files to trash instead of using plain
del
. How is this done?It looks like the only languages I can use for this is plain batch or Perl.
-
user almost 11 yearsI get an error message on Windows 7 when i run this vbs file. The message is "Line: 2, Char: 1, Error: Invalid character, Code:800A0408, Source:Microsoft VBScript compilation error". I've tried the suggestion here but it doesn't help stackoverflow.com/a/9217824/781695