The Copy files task is a simple way to copy one or more files. In the Copy files dialog you add, edit, clone or delete copy items and change order of copy items. Changes may be done either by the toolbar buttons or mouse right click on the grid.
One Copy files task may contain several copy items. For each copy item a source folder, a file mask and a destination folders is defined. For a copy item, you are also able to specify a Network credential for access of a source or destination folder.
Network credentials
A copy activity involving another computer may require a network credential. Network credentials are globally managed in VisualCron and can be accessed from different parts in the application.
The Network credential must match a user that has access to the remote computer folder which you want to copy files to or from.
Source folder
Specify the full path to the folder you want to copy from.
File mask
The file mask provides a way to filter files that you want to include in the copying. The following wildcard characters are permitted in the File mask entry:
| • | * - Zero or more characters of any type allowed in a file name |
| • | ? - Exactly one character of any type allowed in a file name |
Characters other than the wildcard characters represent themselves. For example, the file mask string "*t" searches for all files names in the current path ending with the letter "t". The search pattern string "s*" searches for all names beginning with the letter "s".
When the file extension is exactly three characters long, the File mask matching procedure differs from when the extension is more than three characters long. Using a File mask of exactly three characters returns files with file extensions of three or more characters. A File mask of one, two or more than three characters returns only files having file extensions of exactly the File mask length.
The following examples shows the behavior of different lengths for the File mask parameter:
| • | "*.ab" - only returns files having the .ab extension |
| • | "*.abc" - returns files having extensions of .abc, .abcd, .abcde, .abcdef, etc. |
| • | "*.abcd" - only returns files having the .abcd extension |
Of course, one specific file name may be entered as file mask.
Destination folder
Specify a absolute path to the directory you want to copy to.
Note 1: When you are accessing a network drive (a folder on a remote computer) as source or destination folder you must specify the path in UNC format and not the letter of the logical drive. For example Y:\remotefolder\ must be specified as \\remoteservername\remotefolder\.
Note 2: The folder path is not case-sensitive.
Note 3: To speed up copying it is recommended that you group the items that are using the same credential after each other. In this way, VisualCron does not need to switch between different (login) credentials.
Include sub folders
When this setting is checked and one or more files are matched, the corresponding source sub folder will be created in the destination folder.
Overwrite if existing
When this setting is checked, all matching files in the destination folder (older or never) will be replaced by the source files.
Overwrite if source file is newer
When this setting is checked, the destination file (if existing) will only be replaced if the source file is newer.
Don't overwrite if existing
When this setting is checked no files are overwritten if they exist.
Delete source file after copy
When this setting is checked, the source file (not the folder) will be deleted after a successful copy. Thus, the source file will be deleted even though it wasn't copied due to the settings of Overwrite if existing (if it was already existing) and Overwrite if source file is newer (if the source file was older than the destination).
Log copy result to output
When this setting is checked, the result, source and destination file is added to the task output. All files that are copied is added to the output.
The output has the following format: Source file path TAB -> TAB Destination file path TAB OK/FAILED
Both OK and FAILED files are added to the task output. To the task std. error only the failed items are added.
This setting is not default as it adds some extra information to send between the server and the client. Use this option only if you have a high speed connection, connecting locally or have a small amount of files.