FIND: Only directories which contain specific files

brian.m · 05-07-2009, 08:19 PM

I am looking for a way to return a listing of directories which contain a specific file type (i.e., *.jpg). I have a directory structure as follows:

Code:

- Folder 1
  - Folder 1a
     1.jpg
     2.jpg
- Folder 2
  - Folder 2a
     3.jpg
     4.jpg
- Folder 3
  - Folder 3a
     index.html

I would like to be able to create symbolic links to directories which only contain jpg files (Folder 3a would be ignored). For example, /Folder 1/Folder 1a/ would end up being linked to /tmp/Folder 1a/.

I image the command would be similar to what is noted below, except this creates a link to directories with other files types in there as well. Again, I only want to create links for folders with contain jpg images.

Code:

find ~/home/username/*/*/*.jpg -type d -exec ln -s {} ~/tmp/ \;

Any ideas? Am I taking the wrong approach to this?

rayfordj · 05-07-2009, 08:44 PM

something like this might work for you but you can encounter errors creating links if it already exists...

Code:

find /home/username/tld/ -type f -iname \*.jpg -exec dirname {} \; | xargs -I{} ln -s {} ~/tmp/

also if you had multiple folders, like in your example except something along the lines of:

Code:

- Folder 1
  - Folder 1a
     1.jpg
     2.jpg
  - Folder 2a
     5.jpg
     6.jpg
- Folder 2
  - Folder 2a
     3.jpg
     4.jpg
- Folder 3
  - Folder 3a
     index.html
  - Folder 1a
     7.jpg

you would have no way of creating multiple links of the same name in the destination directory

i'd probably do something along the lines of calling a script from find's -exec option and work from there to create the link named off of some hash of the path...

Code:

find /home/username/tld/ -type f -iname \*.jpg -exec /home/username/bin/linkit.sh {} \;

linkit.sh

Code:

#!/bin/bash
#
# create links in ~/tmp/ to directories with .jpg files
DSTDIR="/home/username/tmp/"
IN="$1"
DIRNAME=$(dirname ${IN})
SHANAME=$(echo ${DIRNAME} | sha1sum | cut -d" " -f1)
LINKNAME="$(DSTDIR}/${SHANAME}"

if [ ! -d ${DSTDIR} ]; then
  mkdir ${DSTDIR}
fi

if [ ! -h ${LINKNAME} ]
  ln -s ${DIRNAME} ${LINKNAME}
fi

wrote this on the fly, so use at own risk ;-)
also, recommend calling all binaries from absolute path rather than relative (or at least defining a sane PATH variable in the script)

brian.m · 05-07-2009, 09:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rayfordj

something like this might work for you but you can encounter errors creating links if it already exists...

Code:

find /home/username/tld/ -type f -iname \*.jpg -exec dirname {} \; | xargs -I{} ln -s {} ~/tmp/

This suggestion worked perfectly... thank you so much!