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Problem trying to "uncar" multiple ".car" files

I have tried various combination of car.exe to "uncar" multiple ".car" files in one command; but failed. I am allowed to uncar only one file at a time. Wild character * does not help. The message "processing" appears and then just stops without doing anything. I am using Windows. E.g., car -xvf KA*.CAR does not work. Also, I have checked the path for car.exe file. Under the same conditions, it works fine for a single file. E.g., car -xvf KA46C26.CAR works fine.

Kindly suggest if there is an easier way. SAPCAR tool also gives the same result.

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SAPCAR has replaced CAR and it is backwards compatible.To decompress multiple files using wildcards you must enclose the file names in quotes.

Example: 

sapcar -xvf "ka*.car"

If you do not use quotes sapcar will not be able to process the files.
Alternatively you can use the "FOR" command to loop through all the .CAR files and invoke SAPCAR with parameters -XVF. In a nutshell, here is the syntax you need: 

for /f %i in ('dir tmpKA*.car /b') do sapcar -xvf tmp%i

The example above assumes that you have placed all the archived files (KA*) under the "tmp" directory.
My advice is to create a batch file that does this for you. I included in my last book and CD-ROM (SAP Basis Administration for Windows) a batch file called SPX.bat, which can be used to decompress support packages. You manipulate the support package name with a variable in the script. It displays the support package file name, decompresses it and it counts the total of processed files.

This was first published in December 2004

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