How to store {_directory} in a variable using --exec-after

[makotocolors]

Hello, I would like to implement a logic where I download images using gallery-dl and then convert the same images using an appropriate tool, but for that I need to somehow get the path to the images folder. I saw that there is --exec-after that has {_directory} that indicates where the images were saved, however the execution of this is done in a separate context that has no influence on the main batch script, and therefore it is not possible to do something like --exec-after "set downloadPath={_directory}". I tried to perform an operation where the download path is temporarily saved in a file using --exec-after "echo {_directory} > temp.txt", for a moment it seemed to have worked, but in the following screenshot the directory names were saved containing characters like "?" and "\" in addition to the Japanese characters being replaced by "?". Just to contextualize the following screenshot, the images were saved in the "C:\Users\Jefferson Luis\Documents\Downloader\downloads\images\nhentai\499936 [Michiking] Ane Taiken Jogakuryou ~Limited Edition~ _ 姊體驗女學寮~Limited Edition~ [Chinese] [Sapana] [Decensored] [Incomplete] [Digital]" directory.

I would like to know if there is a more viable way to store the directory of files where they were downloaded, since each link is downloaded in a different folder based on the site, the work, authors, etc.

[mikf]

You can't really store values in variables when using --exec-after and use it afterwards, that's not how shells work. You could use ´--exec-after´ to run a custom shell script (if that is even a thing on Windows) and do everything in there, or you use a python post processor and handle all logic in a custom Python function. You would also need to enable metadata-path to have access to all path-related data.

the directory names were saved containing characters like "?" and ""

#7026

the Japanese characters being replaced by "?"

That's most likely an encoding mismatch. gallery-dl / {_directory} outputs its value in UTF-8, but the shell's > forwards it as a different encoding.

[makotocolors]

Well, I did what you said and directed the {_directory} to a new batch file using --exec-after "call tools\img\img2pdf.bat {_directory}" where I will manipulate the images folder individually. And it worked! I only needed to replace the first 4 characters which were \\?\. Also when I used echo in the new batch file it sent the Japanese characters correctly (as shown in the following screenshot) - something that didn't happen when I used directly --exec-after "echo {_directory}". Anyway, thanks a lot for the answer!