Re: convert-ly

[Hans Aikema]

> On 3 Jun 2021, at 09:21, Brian Barker <b.m.barker@btinternet.com> wrote:
> 
> At 07:22 03/06/2021 +0200, Hans Aikema wrote:
>> the convert-ly script does not interpret wildcards, but requires the file 
>> explicitly. The way you call it makes it look for a file that is named *.ly 
>> (which can never be present as * is not an allowed character for a filename)
> 
> Thanks for this.
> 
>> As documented on
>> https://lilypond.org/doc/v2.22/Documentation/usage/invoking-convert_002dly
>> you need to use the 'forfiles' windows command to run the conversion for 
>> multiple files using a wildcard:
>> 
>> forfiles /s /M *.ly /c "cmd /c convert-ly.py -e @file"
> 
> But that resource claims that this command is required only for searching 
> subdirectories of the current directory, and that
> convert-ly.py -e *.ly
> works for all .ly files in a directory.
> 
> Can we agree, then, that this is wrong and that (in Windows) the forfiles 
> command but without the /s parameter is required even for handling all .ly 
> files in a single directory? Oh, and that the copy of convert-ly installed in 
> version 2.22 in Windows has to have its name corrected (to convert-ly.py) for 
> anything to work?
> 

Ah you're right on that, overlooked the first entry. But fairly certain that 
the statement on not interpreting the wildcard holds (It's a difference between 
Windows and shells like bash that is often overlooked - in bash the shell takes 
care of expanding the wildcard to a list of files matching the pattern. On 
windows the shell passes the wildcard parameter unchanged to the invoked 
application.
Appears to be an error in the documentation indeed. Thanks for correcting my 
misreading.

> Brian Barker  
>