BASH: Getting parent folder name

dezix · 10-13-2019, 09:37 AM

Hello!

in a folder I have automatically named files, i. e.:

ls my_repo
file000 file001 ...

with a bash script, I would like to change the name of these files to:

my_repo000 my_repo001 ...

Assuming I work recursively on a tree structure,
maybe with the "find" command to select specific sets of files.

What should be a simple way to get only the names of the parent folders (not the complete or relative path as "dirname" do)?

Thanks for the help.

smallpond · 10-13-2019, 09:47 AM

basename on a directory will give you the last component of the name

Code:

cd /usr/bin
basename $PWD
bin

dezix · 10-13-2019, 09:57 AM

In a similar way, I've tried :

Code:

$ cd /top/of/tree
$ find . -name "file[0-9]*.txt" -exec basename $(dirname '{}') \;

but it shows only dots, not the folder's names

(

Turbocapitalist · 10-13-2019, 10:01 AM

Can you provide some more examples, perhaps of some folders and directories deeper down in the hierarchy?

As you've described so far, I would guess something like this would do:

(untested)

Code:

find . -type f -exec echo mv {} $(basename $(dirname {}))_xyzzy_$(basename {}) \;

find . -type f -name '*xyzzy*' -exec rename -n 's/xyzzy_file_//' {} \;

However, there's probably a more efficient way.

dezix · 10-13-2019, 10:21 AM

@Turbocapitalist

I've tried to simplify the question but it wasn't the best way to ask, sorry.

I have some thing like :

Code:

.../parent/
	├── page.txt
	└── page/
		├── pasted_image000.png
		├── pasted_image001.png
		├── pasted_image002.png
		├── sous-page.txt
		└── sous-page/
			├── ...
			└── ...

that I want to turn in :

Code:

├── page.txt
└── page/
	├── page000.png
	├── page001.png
	├── page002.png

You're right, the final command I think about deals with rename

teckk · 10-13-2019, 10:43 AM

Example with a sleep so that you can see whats happening.

Code:

cd /path/path

num=0
for i in *; do
    echo ""$i" > page"$((num++))".png"
    sleep .5
done

Use mv, rename with it.

dezix · 10-13-2019, 11:04 AM

Code:

find . -name "pasted_image[0-9]*.png" -ok rename -n s/pasted_image/$(basename $(dirname '{}'))/ '{}' \;
< rename ... ./pasted_image000.png >*? y
rename(./pasted_image000.png, ./.000.png)

This works but putting dots not the parent folder name

Quote:

Originally Posted by teckk

Example with a sleep so that you can see whats happening.

Code:

cd /path/path

num=0
for i in *; do
    echo ""$i" > page"$((num++))".png"
    sleep .5
done

Use mv, rename with it.

Thanks, but I don't understand how it works

I will try ...

allend · 10-13-2019, 06:22 PM

If you set the globstar shell option in bash then the construction 'for d in **/' returns all subdirectory names. These can be processed using parameter expansions, as shown in this one liner. It is wrapped in single parantheses so the command is run in a subshell.

Code:

 (shopt -s globstar; for d in **/; do e=${d%*/}; for f in $d*; do echo "$f is in directory $d with parent ${e##*/}"; done; done)

dezix · 10-14-2019, 05:47 AM

@allend
Great! Thank you for teaching something really new to me.

Finally, I think,
I will try to use smallpond's solution that looks the simplest way,
in some "for" loop

Thanks to every one for helping and driving me on the right track.