To move files and folders

[sarshan]

Hello,

I would like to move files and folders to different locations. I am a novice to this scripting. It would be much appreciated if someone could help me exploring how to move files to different locations.

For example

Existing location: This is where files to be picked

X:\qa\Team\Saravanan\Reports

New location: This is where files to be placed

X:\qa\Team\Saravanan\mergefiles\Temp

[willcampbell7 · Accepted solution]

Yup just had to sleep on it. Photoshop has the app method "system". Sends Terminal commands on Mac, Command Prompt on Windows. So a few tweaks. One thing different is you don't pass file objects. Instead just String objects of the full paths. And now the destination includes the file name, not just the folder. An added benefit of this difference is that the file can be renamed when moved. If not just have the same name in the "to" argument, as my example call at top shows. Also this won't deal with dotbar files on a Windows server. Those files rare nowadays anyway. That was old leftover stuff from 10 years ago, still in my first sample code I posted. Hardly anyone needs that anymore.

var from = "~/Desktop/in folder/green.jpg";
var to = "~/Desktop/out folder/green.jpg";
var result = moveFile(from, to);
alert(result);

function moveFile(from, to) {
    // from = String: full path and name of file to move.
    // to = String: full path and name of new file at destination.
    var command;
    var fileFrom;
    var fileTo;
    var folderTo;
    fileFrom = new File(new File(from).fsName);
    fileTo = new File(new File(to).fsName);
    if (/%(?!20|5C)/.test(File.encode(fileFrom.fsName))) {
        // Unicode characters detected in filename. Move will fail because
        // ExtendScript cannot pass Unicode text to command prompt via a string variable.
        return false;
    }
    if (!fileTo.exists) {
        folderTo = new Folder(fileTo.path);
        if (!folderTo.exists) {
            folderTo.create();
        }
        if (File.fs == "Windows") {
            command = "move \"" + fileFrom.fsName + "\" \"" + fileTo.fsName + "\"";
            app.system(command);
        } else if (File.fs == "Macintosh") {
            command = "mv \"" + fileFrom.fsName + "\" \"" + fileTo.fsName + "\"";
            app.system(command);
        }
        if (fileTo.exists) {
            return true;
        }
    }
    // Failed to move.
    return false;
}

[Stephen_A_Marsh]

@willcampbell7 

Thank you, I'll check it out and come back to you!

Update: That is great, thank you so much, this is a "game changer" compared to the usual way of making a new file and removing the old file. I tested on a Mac and the file date wasn't changed and the Finder Label was retained... But strangely, the Finder "Comment" added via File Info was removed when it isn't when using the mouse to move the file between folders. I'll look into the mv command as there may be additional flags/switches/arguments that can be applied.