[SOLVED] Clueless on how to remove spaces from all .jpg's beneath a folder

anon091 · 09-10-2009, 01:02 PM

I ran it with the echo and the 2nd half of the mv still has the spaces removed from the folder names so i'm assuming it will fail if i remove the echo.

catkin · 09-10-2009, 01:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rjo98

I ran it with the echo and the 2nd half of the mv still has the spaces removed from the folder names so i'm assuming it will fail if i remove the echo.

Oops! Mea culpa!

Of course it does. Maybe switch to my method of calling a script from find, but using this updated script

Code:

#!/bin/bash
for file in "$@"
do
    dir="${file%/*}/"
    name="${file#$dir}"
    newname="${name// /}"
    if [[ "$newname" != "$name" ]]; then
       echo mv "$file" "${dir}$newname"
    fi
done

i92guboj · 09-10-2009, 01:27 PM

I see, it was a silly error on my side. If you want to preserve the directories but change all the regular files, try this instead.

Code:

find . -name '* *'.[jJ][pP][gG] | while read file; do
  oldfile=$(basename "$file")
  newfile="${oldfile// /}"
  echo mv "$file" "${file%$oldfile}$newfile"
done

anon091 · 09-10-2009, 01:30 PM

the echo'd lines look like it'll work! i'm going to run it. could you explain the stuff you added so i can understand it?

anon091 · 09-10-2009, 01:32 PM

Looks like that worked perfectly!

i92guboj · 09-10-2009, 01:39 PM

Yes. It just needed some retouching, so it would strip the spaces from the file name, but not the path.

Code:

oldfile=$(basename "$file")

basename returns the file name only, so "basename /path/to/file.jpg" would return "file.jpg". That base name is stored in $oldfile.

Code:

newfile="${oldfile// /}"

This is the same I did originally, I remove the blanks from $oldfile and store the result into $newfile.

Code:

echo mv "$file" "${file%$oldfile}$newfile"

There you have a new operator, ${file%$oldfile} cuts the first occurrence of the substring $oldfile inside $file starting from the right. So the result would be the path without the old filename. Finally I add $newfile to that path, obtaining the wanted result.

anon091 · 09-10-2009, 01:41 PM

Thanks again!!

anon091 · 09-10-2009, 02:14 PM

So could I add that line to a crontab to have it run every so often on that root folder with all the jpgs?

doublejoon · 09-11-2009, 05:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by i92guboj

Remove or substitute by _ or something else?

You could use find.

Code:

find . -type f -name '* *'.[jJ][pP][gG] | while read file; do mv "$file" "${file// /}"; done
# or
find . -type f -name '* *'.[jJ][pP][gG] | while read file; do mv "$file" "${file//_/}"; done

The last example you had with the underscore did not work.

This worked for me to replace the spaces with underscores

Code:

find . -type f -name '* *'.[jJ][pP][gG] | while read file; do mv "$file" "${file// /_}"; done

[/QUOTE]

i92guboj · 09-11-2009, 05:59 AM

Yes, that was a typo. Sorry.

*goes to fix another post*

catkin · 09-11-2009, 06:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rjo98

So could I add that line to a crontab to have it run every so often on that root folder with all the jpgs?

Change the directory name "." to the full path of the desired directory and change "find" to /usr/bin/find and it should work ...

i92guboj · 09-11-2009, 06:19 AM

I'd rather convert this into a script and put it under one of the /etc/cron.*/ directories depending on the frequency, and yes, you will need to use fully qualified paths.

catkin · 09-11-2009, 06:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by i92guboj

I'd rather convert this into a script ...

What are the advantages of doing so (apart from keeping the crontab to an easily visible width!)?

i92guboj · 09-11-2009, 06:52 AM

Well, none, I guess It's just a matter of cleanliness and personal preference.

I guess each person puts the limit according to his/her own personal tastes. I prefer to keep crontab readable, if I need to write something that's more than a simple command, I rather write a script and either add it to the crontab or put it into /etc/crond.*/. But besides that, as long as the syntax allows it, you can use whatever fits you better.