Hey guys, this is probably a dumb question, but what can I say, sleep deprivation catches up with ya... Hope someone has an efficient solution for this: I have about 100 gigs of data that are arranged in zipped folders on CDs. I need to take all the text files that are zipped in those folders (about 3 folders on each CD) and move them to a single zipped folder on the external hard drive. Basically, the files are intraday trade data for a couple of years that I wanna run some programs on and I would like to have them all in a single zipped directory. I have installed ZipMagic so I can access the zipped files directly within my Visual Basic routine. Here's the question I've been struggling with. How do I move files that are in the zipped directories on CDs to a different zipped directorly on the hard drive WITHOUT having to unzip them? It seems like this is so basic it should be very easy to do but I can't seem to find a way around it. Whatever I come up with is extremely slow b/c the files first get unzipped from the CD, then zipped again and moved to the final zipped folder... Any help or advice would be immensely appreciated. Thanks a bunch in advance. Vladimir.
Not sure what your problem is, but here is a brute force solution that is pretty much guaranteed to work (double your money back if not 100% satisfied ): Fire up the command line - hit the start button, press R and enter either "command" (Win95, 98 and mebbe 2k) or "cmd" (WinXP and mebbe WinME) (no quotes). Type the letter of your CD drive and a colon, then hit enter Type "cd " then the directory where the file you wish to copy is, then hit enter. Type the letter of the drive you wish to copy to, then a colon, and hit enter. Type "cd " then the directory of where you want to copy the files to, then hit enter. Type "copy X:." where X is the drive letter that has the files you want to copy. This will copy all the files from one directory to another.
Thanks TGregg. I'm afraid that won't work for what I'm trying to do. I guess I did a bad job explaining the situation. Here's another attempt I have a large number of text files (containing intraday trades data) that I would like to all be on the external drive in a single zipped directoly (they won't fit otherwise and I can still working on them using zipmagic which allows direct access to zipped files within programs.). Currently those files are organized in many folders (say a folder for half a month) and are zipped and saved on CDs. There may be one, two or three such zipped folders on each CD. The solution that does work but is extremely slow is to unzip each of those CD folders and add them to the single final zipped folder on the external drive where I'd like all of them to end up. That involves first unzipping and then zipping them which seems like a waste of time and should be somehow avoided. What you suggest, if I understood you correctly, will not work because I can't just copy all the stuff the CD has b/c I don't want to have lots of subdirectories containing the files. I can access the files in those subdirectories in DOS and copy them to the zipped directory in the hard drive but it still unzips them first and them zips them back. That's my whole problem basically. I assumed there had to be a way to take a file within a zipped folder and move it to a different zipped folder without having it unzipped/rezipped on the way. So far seems like it's not possible... Thanks.
I'm not familiar with a zipped folder, but I have zipped up multiple files into a zip file many times. If you have files with .zip extentions, then those are files, not really folders. So you can copy them from the command line w/o them being unzipped. I think. Copy two of them over to your hard drive, and see if you can merge them using zipmagic.
Thanks again TGregg. Basically what happened is the person who arranged them on CDs first put a number of individual text files into a directory/folder and then zipped that folder. Let me try something to see if it works. I appreciate your help. Vladimir.
Hi Vlad, I use Windows Commander v4.54 and have just tried what you're trying to do, i.e. moving a .txt file from inside a .zip file into another .zip file. You could go to Tucows.com to d/l the shareware version of Windows Commander. I am sure other program such as Norton Commander could do the same thing. Cheers!!
Here's a guy ("vlad") that can presumably run sophisticated mathematical & backtesting programs on reams of data but can't manage a simple zip file. lol.. I find this amusing..
Hmm, sounds as though you need a simple program (written in basic perhaps) that will take each folder, look into it for zip files, then open them and place the individual files into a single folder of your choosing. Am I correct in this? I think that you could get one written for you to cover your needs. I'd probably approach the issue as a new database structure directly suited and created for your venture. The first question I would ask you in that pursuit would be, "Do you have a database program?" Something along the lines of an MS Access could be given the file structure and made to create a large data file for further manipulation. Since these files of your are so large (seemingly) maybe you could limit the data in each new database file to a monthly parameter. Possibly even a quarter timeframe if you could get away with it.
When I first saw: "This person is on your Ignore List. To view this post click [here]" I was a bit hesitant to view your post. Having clicked on it, I see I was entirely correct assuming you'd not contribute anything worthy. Yes, I CAN run sophisticated programs on more data then you ever will see. As to "managing a simple zip file", you have no f#cking idea what you are talking about and have no business judging me. I realized it was smth that could, if possible at all, be easily done. I have explored a lot more options than you think. I didn't think of Norton Commander b/c the software I use to access zipped files directly without unzipping them has to run under Windows. ...to cut a long story short, if I put 1% of my data on your computer and asked you to do smth with it, you'd be struggling with it's mammoth size and all the complications for the rest of your life.
Thanks for your suggestions. The thing is if I did what you suggest - "then open them" that in itself takes forever and is what I'm trying to avoid. I'll have to think about Access idea. The thing is I need to have all those files together in a single directory so I can run my program on them smoothly. The problem would not exist if I chose to chop the set into parts and do each separately. Except that would not be very time-efficient. If nothing works, I'll end up doing just that. Thanks!