Fully qualified versus relative path in format string

Support
1

I'm trying to move files to folders based on artist and album names but the new filename is always relative to the current file location and not a fully qualified path from the root of the drive. Assuming that files will be moved from and to the same drive is acceptable. My file structure is:

\
.....My Music\
..........Album Artist 1\
...............(Year) Album A\
....................Track - Title.mp3
..........John E. Guitarplayer\
...............(2023) Hit Songs\
....................001 - Happy Song.mp3
..........Album Artist 3\
...............(Year) Album C\
....................Track - Title.mp3
..........Unsorted Tracks\
...............Title.mp3
..........Other files\
...............New Music Files\
....................Target File.mp3

I use mp3tag to load correct tag information then use a format string to rename and move the files to appropriate folders:

Current Directory: G:\My Music\Other Files\New Music Files
File: Target File.mp3
AlbumArtist: John E. Guitarplayer
Year: 2023
Album: Hit Songs
Track: 002
Title: Sad Song

\My Music%albumartist%(%year%) %album%$num(%track%,3) - %title%

I'm expecting to get:

\
.....My Music\
..........John E. Guitarplayer\
...............(2023) Hit Songs\
....................001 - Happy Song.mp3
....................002 - Sad Song.mp3
..........Other files\
...............New Music Files\

Instead, I get:

\
.....My Music\
..........John E. Guitarplayer\
...............(2023) Hit Songs\
....................001 - Happy Song.mp3
..........Other files\
...............New Music Files\
....................My Music\
.........................John E. Guitarplayer\
..............................(2023) Hit Songs\
...................................002 - Sad Song.mp3

A new path is created in the original folder even though my format string begins with a backslash. It works the same with or without the leading backslash.

This works fine if I specify the drive letter:

G:\My Music%albumartist%(%year%) %album%$num(%track%,3) - %title%

But I can't be sure what letter Windows might assign each time I mount a removeable drive. Is there a way to reference the "current drive" in a format string?

This also works but I'd have to assume I'd never be more than 10 levels deep in the file structure:

....................\My Music%albumartist%(%year%) %album%$num(%track%,3) - %title%

It's not very elegant but gets the job done until I find myself 11 or more levels deep. Then, God knows where the file may be relocated to. Is there a better way to handle this?

2

You could retrieve that letter plus the colon with
$left(%_path%,2)

3

That works. Thanks. I guess there's no way to just refer to the root of the current drive?

4

Show me a way with OS means or the command line syntax and that would be the solution.
I wonder why that short piece of scripting isn't fit for your special requirements.
BTW: if you assign a drive letter manually, then Windows usually remembers that. It should be a letter that is usually not reached by the automatic drive letter assignment, e.g. J would be a letter that is probably not used by USB devices.
So your external drive should be registered by its hardware identifier and then always get the same drive letter.

5

That code does work. I was just thinking in terms of the commands mkdir, chdir and rmdir and how the leading backslash on a directory name determines where the action occurs. No matter where I am on a drive, the command

md \newfolder

will create a new directory named newfolder in the root of the drive while

md newfolder

will create a new directory IN the current directory. I don't know how that relates to the scripting engine in mp3tag but that's where I was coming from. $left(%_path%,2) works fine and I've already added it to my format strings. So thanks again for that.

1 Like
6

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