Linux folder and file manipulation help

resolute155 · 12-19-2006, 09:12 PM

I have a folder with 336 separate files such as:
sr_01_loc_0001.img
sr_01_loc_0002.img
sr_01_loc_0003.img
...
sr_01_loc_0336.img

What I want to do is divide these up into groups of 48 files apiece. So I want to take files 1-48 and put them into a new folder, and files 49-97 into a second new folder, etc. until I have all 336 in 7 new folders. The problem is the files are pretty much identical except for slight differences in their names as you can see.

Is there any Linux command that can help me do this (other then having to list 001,002,003 etc.)? For example some Linux command that would allow me to take the first x number of files in a folder and move them (so I could select the first 48 files of the folder for example)?

If there is not single command to help me, is it possible to write a shell script to accomplish this goal?

Thanks,

David

demon_vox · 12-19-2006, 10:01 PM

Hi,
if you execute this:

Code:

ls *img | sort -n | head -n 10

you will get your first 10 files (ls gets the file, sort -n sorts them and head take the first 10 of that list).
Then if you want to move them, you can do something like this:

Code:

ls *img | sort -n | head -n 10 | while read FILE_NAME; do mv $FILE_NAME ./yourDir; done

between the do and the done you can write any code which will be executed once for each filename (and the variable FILE_NAME have the current filename).

Hope this is useful.
Cheers!

carl0ski · 12-19-2006, 10:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by demon_vox

Hi,
if you execute this:

Code:

ls *img | sort -n | head -n 10

you will get your first 10 files (ls gets the file, sort -n sorts them and head take the first 10 of that list).
Then if you want to move them, you can do something like this:

Code:

ls *img | sort -n | head -n 10 | while read FILE_NAME; do mv $FILE_NAME ./yourDir; done

between the do and the done you can write any code which will be executed once for each filename (and the variable FILE_NAME have the current filename).

Hope this is useful.
Cheers!

i always seem to prefer for

for filename in `ls *img | sort -n | head -n 10`
do echo moving $filename
mv $filename directory
done

resolute155 · 12-20-2006, 10:07 AM

Great sutff! Thanks!

David

demon_vox · 12-20-2006, 10:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by carl0ski

i always seem to prefer for

for filename in `ls *img | sort -n | head -n 10`
do echo moving $filename
mv $filename directory
done

Just for the sake of completeness I'll say what are the difference (advantage / disadvantages) of both of them.

My one-liner solution is more practical if you just want to use it in the shell and may want to change it often. Since you can write in a single command line, its easy to modify and re-execute. On the other hand, if you want to do more than just a mv it will get ofuscated and hard to use very quickly. So, it is good if you have simple commands in your while loop.

carl0ski idea of writing a for instead of a while, is better if you want to end up doing more complicated things. As you'll end up writting it in a file and then executing the script. I dont think it is very comfortable to use it directly in the shell (whenever you write a script in 4 lines, the shell is not so good at reediting that line).

Just some thoughts

Cheers!