[SOLVED] Using find and a pattern file

spivey76 · 11-02-2010, 12:19 PM

So I've tried a few things but nothing is working. I have a folder with ~9K files in it. I also have a file with about 500 file names in it, lets call it "matches.txt".

What I want is to find all the files in this folder that are listed in matches.txt and copy them to a another folder.

I can paste the various commands I've tried, but I don't want to bias any answers I can receive here. I know grep and find are essential but I'm missing something - everything I've used returns zero files copied.

spivey76 · 11-02-2010, 12:20 PM

I just realized I put this under the wrong topic - apologies in advance.

catkin · 11-02-2010, 12:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spivey76

I can paste the various commands I've tried, but I don't want to bias any answers I can receive here.

Chances are you will not get many replies until you do post what you have tried -- which is one way of ensuring few biassed answers!

spivey76 · 11-02-2010, 01:48 PM

Well, ok. I am a newb at this but here it goes:

Code:

while read line; do find . -name $line *.txt < matchb.txt; done

That just runs, never returns anything. I was trying to just list the files before adding the copying funciton.

Code:

find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -exec grep -f matchb.txt '{}' ';' -exec cp '{}' files/ ';'

This is as far as I've come, but this just creates a file (matchb.txt) that lists the files I'm trying to copy.

Everything else has been a variation of the above to lines.

crts · 11-02-2010, 03:23 PM

Try

Code:

while read -r line; do find . -name "$line" -exec cp -a '{}' /path/to/new/dir/ \; ; done < matchb.txt

[UNTESTED]

spivey76 · 11-03-2010, 07:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by crts

Try

Code:

while read -r line; do find . -name "$line" -exec cp -a '{}' /path/to/new/dir/ \; ; done < matchb.txt

[UNTESTED]

Returned:

Code:

cp: files/rtf_doc_to_ascii.14244384.txt and ./files/rtf_doc_to_ascii.14244384.txt are identical (not copied).

But when I checked the output folder the files were there - so that works for me.

On a side note for anyone else: I did have to convert the pattern file from dos to unix, otherwise it wasn't being read correct.

Thanks for the help.

crts · 11-03-2010, 07:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spivey76

Returned:

Code:

cp: files/rtf_doc_to_ascii.14244384.txt and ./files/rtf_doc_to_ascii.14244384.txt are identical (not copied).

Probably because 'files' is a subfolder of the folder you are searching in.