How to perform an action (a command) on multiple files with the FOR loop?

chun-mee · 08-22-2005, 10:21 AM

I need to automate the actions that I perform on a batch of files.
I perform a

Code:

command inputfile.oldext outputfile.newext

type of action.

The files are

Code:

track_01.wav
track_02.wav
...
track_n.wav

(But they could be any filetype and I could need to perform any similar command upon them.)

When I issue

Code:

bladeenc track_01.wav track_01.mp3

I get an mp3 file in addition to the original wav.
How do I build a FOR loop that will

Code:

command (trackname).wav (trackname).mp3

for each file and then stop at the last file?

I have been told that the FOR loop plus setting a smart variable for the filename could do that, but the books I have checked describe an older command, FOREACH, no longer available in my distro.
Thank you guys!

bigearsbilly · 08-22-2005, 10:26 AM

Code:

 for file in *.lsp;do
 echo file is:$file
done

file is:client.lsp
file is:globals.lsp
file is:grid.lsp
file is:hash.lsp
file is:noughts.lsp
file is: play.lsp
file is:server.lsp

chun-mee · 08-22-2005, 01:14 PM

Am not experienced reading these without an example;
Do you mean
for file in *.lsp; do
bladeenc
echo file is:$file
done

?

and what do these mean?
file is:client.lsp
file is:globals.lsp
file is:grid.lsp
Sorry but if I knew then I would not be posting here. I am not a programmer.
I was hoping for an example I could paste here and then learn from it if it works. Many thanks.

crabboy · 08-22-2005, 10:44 PM

Billy wrote the loop that you would need. He used .lst file extension instead of .wav since that is likely what he had to test with on his machine, and he used echo, to show the file names, instead of executing your command.

Here would be the script as you would use it:

Code:

#!/bin/sh

for FILE in `ls *.wav`; do

  NEWFILE=`echo $FILE | sed 's/\.wav/\.mp3/' `
  bladeenc $FILE $NEWFILE

done

Careful with the single quotes, the direction does matter!

bigearsbilly · 08-23-2005, 03:11 AM

sorry for lack of explanation...
was a bit busy at work,

thanks a lot crabboy