Save Documents - Regex Fun with Backslash

[bkennedy]

In addition to renaming our scanned files by Invoice and Sales Order numbers, we also want to save them into folders based on the Invoice Year.

So I thought to try adding a backslash in the filename field of Save Documents; see if I can automate the folder path part and later figure out how to pull the Invoice Year off of the document.
Example: INV_%[RegExp:invoice] \ SO_%[RegExp:salesorder]
(Same computer and custom tool I previously submitted to you this week)

As you might see from my example I had mistakenly left spaces on either side of the backslash.
What happened was incredibly strange.
It did create a folder INV_12345 and inside it did have a SO_12345 file; however, a second INV_12345 folder was created as well with separate creation stamps in the same root directory. I have no idea how that happened.
I was eventually able to delete one of them. Still working on the other.
I suspect it's a file allocation table issue where one of them had a leading space, and the other did not, and the UI or Windows tried to auto-fix it.
Or perhaps I need to give my file server a reboot and a there-there.

If you manage to reproduce it or have recommendations going forward do let me know.


PS.
A quick UI fix - In custom tool definition the Run Javascript tool on the UI has a faulty 404 link for "Open online help in browser..."

[Roman - Tracker Supp]

Hello bkennedy,

Thank you. Yes, this is an issue in our product, we will resolve it in a next release of PDF-XChange Tools.
You can delete a directory with leading and/or trailing spaces with this console command:

Code: Select all

rd /Q /S "\\?\<full path to the directory>"

For example, if your directory is "c:\dir\ dir_with_edge_spaces " then use this command:

Code: Select all

rd /Q /S "\\?\c:\dir\ dir_with_edge_spaces "

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello jourgewilson,

The post above yours by our colleague Roman should be helping with the initial enquiry in this topic.
Can you please let us know in more detail why your first post in our forums is in this topic - are you trying to achieve the same as the OP?

Kind regards,
Stefan

[Roman - Tracker Supp]

Hello, could you share more information about it?

The issue with "undeletable" directory occurred because of discrepancy between the underlying filesystem and Windows API capabilities.
The filesystem itself allows trailing spaces and dots in file and directory names while the API can filter them out (depends on the file naming scheme used). As a result, a request to delete "c:\dir\dir_with_trailing_space " will result in an attempt to delete the non-existent file "c:\dir\dir_with_trailing_space".