How do I create multiple folders with a batch file?

Question

I need to create a folder (called "visitor") in every folder of one main folder. For example, my structure is this:

\idontknowthename1\
\idontknowthename2\
\idontknowthename3\
\idontknowthename4\
\idontknowthename5\

I need this:

\idontknowthename1\visitor
\idontknowthename2\visitor
\idontknowthename3\visitor
\idontknowthename4\visitor
\idontknowthename5\visitor

Of course, there are some issues:

1. I don't know the total numbers of folders in the root folder
2. I don't know the real name of every folder
3. I can't use any software or install anything more that comes with Windows XP (it's for a web server on staging and production)

I was thinking of doing this with a batch file (using for), but I can't work out how to get the names of the folders without parsing a file. Any ideas?

Answer 1

List all folders into a file:

dir /ad /b /s > dirlist.txt

For every directory, run mkdir:

for /f "tokens=*" %%a in (dirlist.txt) do mkdir "%%~a\visitor"

Delete temporary file:

del dirlist.txt

(It's possible to use dir... directly inside the for loop, but there is a risk of endless recursion.)

Answer 2

This seems to work with folder names that have spaces.

@echo off

set root_folder=%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\test

for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir "%root_folder%" /ad /b') do @if not exist "%%~fa\visitor" md "%%~fa\visitor"

set root_folder=

You can make visitor folders in subfolders as well by adding /s to the DIR command, that is dir "%root_folder%" /ad /b /s. This does not seem to suffer any issues with recursion.

Answer 3

for has a /d parameter that will list the directories instead of the files.

for /d %%i in (C:\Path\To\Root\*) do @md "%%i\visitor" should do the trick