When doing a archive compress. I have several files in a folder. I would like to compress them all but when I use either a file mask or regex it only ever seems to take the first item.

example
folder list:
x.txt
y.txt
z.txt

File mask is as follows:
x.txt;y.txt;z.txt

I also used a regex of x.txt|y.txt|z.txt
Only x.txt is added to archive and the other two remain.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance.

The mask is so you don't have to list all the files. Try this for your first example of one letter filenames names ending in txt:
?.txt or this for any filename ending in txt: *.txt

A regex for the same for would be:
.\.txt or .*\.txt

Let us know if it works for you.

Unfortunately I need to specify a specific list of files.

Can you give an actual folder listing, highlighting the files you need? Perhaps we can build a regular expression that will meet your needs.

Thanks Gary. Basically my listing above would be an example.

I need to specifically name the entire file. So if there are the following files in a directory:
x.txt
y.txt
z.txt
...
a.txt

The scenario is that files x-z are dropped in the directory and processed. while they are processing another file is dropped in the directory a.txt. Once x-z are finished I want to archive just those files and not a.txt because it was not in the original batch and still needs to be processed. I thought a regex expression like x.txt|y.txt|z.txt would work but it only seems to pickup the first file x.txt. I am not sure what I am doing wrong. I hope all that makes sense.

I just tested this regex (and compressed all 3 files):

[xyz].txt
or
[x-z].txt

Make sure the Is regex checkbox is checked.
Use the Test tab to test your regex. It will show the files it will compress.

[edit]
I also used your expression: x.txt|y.txt|z.txt and this one works also. It compresses all three files.
Please check the path and use the Test tab to check the files hit by your file filter setings.
[/edit]

Regards
Erik

---

Thanks Erik. That works. While implementing your solution i figured out what was wrong with my initial one. While I was creating the list I need to trim the file string before adding it to the list. Although you couldn't see any spaces something was there stopping it from working.

I got my original solution working now. Thanks again for your help.