Copy one file to multiple directories

cmfarley19 · 11-10-2004, 09:48 AM

I have a mp3 directory tree,

Code:

/mp3/Artist1
/mp3/Artisit2
...
/mp3/ArtistN

I am making it web browseable with the hellp of some PHP scripting. I need to copy a index.php file from /mp3/Artist1 to the subdirectory for every other artist (some 450+).

I know this has to be pretty easy to do. I just haven't been able to crack the nut.

Any thoughts?

meblost · 11-10-2004, 10:04 AM

Maybe you could place a symbolic link in each subdir that points to index.php.

try ln -s /path/to/index.php /path/to/desired_link. I have used this several times successfully with image galleries. This way when you want to change index.php, you don't have to recopy the file to each sub dir.

To be more clear, if index.php is in /mp3 try,

$ cd /mp3
$ for foo in $(ls);do ln -s /mp3/index.php /mp3/$foo;done

If their are other subdirs in /mp3 that you do not want to place a link in, you will have to replace for foo in $(ls) with something else that prints only the files you want. The command listed above will place a link to /mp3/index.php in each subdir of /mp3.

cmfarley19 · 11-10-2004, 10:10 AM

I didn't think about using a symlink. That could work. Don't I have the same problem though? I have to create a symlink for each of the 450+ directories. I'm trying to automate that process via a piped command or small bash script.

meblost · 11-10-2004, 10:26 AM

Oops, you are too quick for me. Read my edited post above...

ahh · 11-10-2004, 10:38 AM

You could try the following:-

Code:

for i in $(ls /mp3); do if [ -d $i ]; then ln -s /path/to/file/index.php $i/index.php; fi; done

ahh · 11-10-2004, 10:40 AM

Oops, too quick for me too...

cmfarley19 · 11-10-2004, 11:06 AM

Well. It's a good start. Some of the artist/subdir names have spaces in them. The script chocks on them.

I know I have to escape the spaces somehow.

LasseW · 11-10-2004, 11:49 AM

Try putting quotes round the loop variable, ie "$i"

ahh · 11-10-2004, 11:51 AM

This is a bit of a cludge, but it should work.

Code:

for i in $(ls /mp3 | tr " " "_"); do j=$(echo $i | tr "_" " "); if [ -d "$j" ]; then ln -s /path/to/index.php  "$j"/index.php; fi; done

cmfarley19 · 11-10-2004, 12:57 PM

Ahh...
That did it.

Cheers mate.

Thanks all.