command line

[anjo]

Perhaps I am overlooking something, but I just cannot find it: is it possible to use universal extractor from a dos command line? I have to unextract a batch of files.

 

thanks, Anjo

Edited February 15, 2015 by anjo

[jaclaz]

Hmmm.

not from actual "dos", but in a Windows command prompt, yes.
http://legroom.net/software/uniextract
 

UniExtract can also be run from the command line. Run UniExtract.exe /? for detailed command line parameters.

 

Or open the (say) English.ini:

 

; Help text
HELP_SUMMARY = "Extract files from any archive type or installer package."
HELP_SYNTAX = "%nUsage: %s [/help | /prefs] [filename [destination]]"
HELP_ARGUMENTS = "%n%nSupported Arguments:"
HELP_HELP = "%n /help%t%tDisplay this help information"
HELP_PREFS = "%n /prefs%t%tAdjust the UniExtract preferences"
HELP_FILENAME = "%n filename%tName of file to extract"
HELP_DESTINATION = "%n destination%tDirectory to which to extract"
HELP_SUB = "%n%nPassing /sub instead of a destination directory name instructs%n%s to extract to subdirectory named after the archive."
HELP_EXAMPLE1 = "%n%nExample:"
HELP_EXAMPLE2 = "%n %s c:\1\example.zip c:\test"
HELP_NOARGS = "%n%nRunning %s without any arguments will%nprompt the user for the filename and destination directory."

 

 

the syntax has not any switches:

Uniextract.exe [filename [destination]]

I.e. you simply run either:

Uniextract.exe c:\1\example.zip c:\test

or

Uniextract.exe c:\1\example.zip /sub

 

BUT:

The original motivation behind this project was to create an easy, convenient way to extract files from various types of installation packages without the need to remember arcane command line switches or track down separate utilities to handle the unpacking.

Basically Uniextract is a GUI wrapper around a number of command line tools.
What it does is to (hopefully) identify (via Trid, which is a command line tool) the format of the installer and run the (hopefully) appropriate - btw usually also command line - unpacker/decompressor.

The very nature of Uniextract makes it not very suitable for batch usage because in a number of occasions for a "same" installer more than one method/tool is available, so if you have a bunch of files it may be better to "bypass" uniextract and run directly the "underlying" tool.

jaclaz

[anjo]

Hi

 

It does exactly what I want. Thanks. And of course you are right: it isn't actual dos but a dos box within the windows operating system. And yes, I could use the underlying command but I did not succeed on that. That's why I want to use the universal extractor. I know that it is an interface and that the underlying methods must be present on my computer but I do not know how to get to it.

 

My problem started because I wanted to serach docx files for a certain string with the windows explorer. If I find the string, change a specific file and perform a different search succeeding the fist search, the file is not indexed yet so the windows search does not work relyably. But the find or findstr (dos commands) do not search through docx files due to the nature of the docx files. If I unzip the doc files, however, I can search them with e.g. a findstr. And that search is relyable, even shortly after editting the file.

 

I could solve the problem by converting the docx to a txt file, but I already have universal extractor and I do not want to donwload too much third party stuff...

 

So the idea is to create a batch file (within a dos box) that loops over the files I want to search through, unzip them and use "findstr"  on them.

 

thanks again!

 

greetings, Anjo

[jaclaz]

Well, still the "dos box" is not really dos, as normally the command processor used in it will be CMD.EXE and NOT COMMAND.COM. to be picky it is a "windows command prompt" or "windows command line".

 

But there is not really-really a *need*  for uniextract if all you have to do is to deal with .docx, which are a rather plain set of PKZIP compatible zip files and all you have to do is to search for text inside them.

 

I believe you are wanting something more like zzfind:

http://stahlworks.com/dev/index.php?tool=zzfind

 

Apart the above, if you are allowed to use some TEMP space, I see no issues in plainly unzipping with your preferred tool the docx to a named folder and look through the files in it, what may create an issue - depending on the actual specific goal - would be to "manage" the data in batch as the .docx is basically an assembly of XML files, and the XML is - because of the "<" and ">" known troublemakers when parsed in batch, it is possible that you may find useful/more practical something *like*:

http://docx2txt.sourceforge.net/

 

or even get a Windows port of Sed, gzip is pipable fine, and in case, you may do with zippipe (a lesser known little tool, but working nicely in my experience):

https://jcarlossaez1.wordpress.com/2005/10/21/on-the-fly-compressionuncompression-is-easy-on-unix-but-also-on-windows/

 

jaclaz 

[anjo]

Hi

 

I was not familiar with the first tool you mentioned (zzfind) but I also found the docx2txt converter. But I was trying to avoid other tools, hence my solution to unizp the docx. I do not have positive experiences with downloading tools to state it carefully (virusses).

 

I realized that the > and < signs in the xml files could mean trouble, but I can program in C so I am able to parse a file with C to avoid possible hickups with a bat file.

 

Thank you very much for your help and the links!

 

greetings, Anjo

[jaclaz]

Good.

 

Just for the record, in case someone is in need of parsing XML from batch, this little thingy here:

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?s=&showtopic=23408&view=findpost&p=159829

works nicely.

 

jaclaz