Need some help with a basic shell script

trist007 · 07-22-2008, 07:58 AM

Could somebody show me how to write a small shell script to organize some files.

Basically, I have a parent directory with about 3 sub directories. There are txt files scattered all throughout. I want to write a script that searches the parent directory along with the subdirectories for txt files and then moves them to the parent directory. Or better yet, would it be better to have the program search for txt files, then as soon as it finds one it moves it directly to the parent directory then resumes the search.

pixellany · 07-22-2008, 08:22 AM

for file in `find . -name *.txt` ; do mv $file <path> ; done

<path> is the absolute path of the destination folder, or the relative path from where you run the command.

Note the backtics (not single-quotes)

jcookeman · 07-22-2008, 08:29 AM

Code:

DIR=/path/to/files
find $DIR -mindepth 2 -name \*.txt -exec mv '{}' $DIR \;

pixellany · 07-22-2008, 08:38 AM

Quote:

-name \*.txt

Why the backslash? I get the same result with or without it.

Pearlseattle · 07-22-2008, 08:40 AM

I don't have right now a *nix-terminal available, so please tell me if I am wrong:
First of all the "find" command searches for files.
E.g. if you want to search starting from the directory "/mydir" and navigate through all its subdirectories you would write:

find /mydir -name "*.txt"

Now, if you want to move all files you find to some other directory "/otherdir" you would write something like:

find /mydir -name "*.txt" -exec mv '{}' /otherdir \;

Something like this?
Greetings.

jcookeman · 07-22-2008, 08:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pearlseattle

First of all the "find" command searches for files.
E.g. if you want to search starting from the directory "/mydir" and navigate through all its subdirectories you would write:

find /mydir -name "*.txt"

Now, if you want to move all files you find to some other directory "/otherdir" you would write something like:

find /mydir -name "*.txt" -exec mv '{}' /otherdir \;

Something like this?
Greetings.

Yes you got it.

FYI: Escaping * (\*) can be necessary in other shells and depending on what shell options are enabled.

ghostdog74 · 07-22-2008, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pixellany

for file in `find . -name *.txt` ; do mv $file <path> ; done

take note of spaces in file names.