[SOLVED] Directory problem, probably very easy

buzzkill.hardball.667 · 09-13-2016, 02:33 PM

ok so all i want to do is move my music directory (which is almost 3000 songs) to another partitition in which to gain some space in the directory and i have this problem for starters..

root@Buzzkill:~/Music# ls
Downloaded ftom G.P.
root@Buzzkill:~/Music# cd Downloaded from G.P.
bash: cd: Downloaded: No such file or directory
root@Buzzkill:~/Music#

Ugh can someone please help me here??????

keefaz · 09-13-2016, 02:35 PM

use quotes with spaces in directory name

Code:

cd "Downloaded ftom G.P."

(is it ftom or from?)

ondoho · 09-13-2016, 02:36 PM

first of all, don't be root.
just don't.

then:

Code:

cd "Downloaded from G.P."

edit:
ninja'd by keefaz!
but i ninja'd isaackuo!

IsaacKuo · 09-13-2016, 02:37 PM

It is confused because of the spaces in the directory name. Try enclosing the name in double quotes like this:

Code:

cd "Downloaded from G.P."

Or simply type in "cd Down" and then hit "tab" to auto-complete the file name. You will see it put backslashes before the spaces to escape them out.

Emerson · 09-13-2016, 02:40 PM

Bash completion can do it for you ...

chrism01 · 09-15-2016, 03:58 AM

Just a general comment to OP: even though a <space> char is syntactically legal in file/dir names in *nix, the convention is NOT to use them...
This is because the cli convention for programs/tools/cmds is that <space> chars separate successive args/params to a program. As you have discovered, this causes problems if you didn't mean that.

FWIW, I've been using *nix for many years and I've never seen a file/dirname with spaces in it provided by a *nix OS or tool supplier - its a well-known gotcha.

HTH & welcome to LQ

aragorn2101 · 09-16-2016, 01:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by buzzkill.hardball.667

root@Buzzkill:~/Music# ls
Downloaded ftom G.P.
root@Buzzkill:~/Music# cd Downloaded from G.P.
bash: cd: Downloaded: No such file or directory
root@Buzzkill:~/Music#

Hi,

First of all there are certain characters in Bash which are used by the shell for control so you basically need to escape these characters when you want to use their literal meaning.

For example, the good old whitespace character " ". Whitespaces usually separate arguments on the command line. This is why, by the way, that it is not good practice to use whitespaces in dir/file names because they might cause problems in scripts.

So, the command

Code:

cd Downloaded from G.P.

basically tells Bash that you want to change to directory "Downloaded" and, "from" and "G.P." are just additional arguments.

Therefore, if you want to include the whitespaces in the file name, you should escape the whitespaces like this:

Code:

cd Downloaded\ from\ G.P.

Or you can also use quotes which tell Bash that everything between the quotes is a single parameter.

buzzkill.hardball.667 · 10-29-2016, 03:04 AM

Well since my last post I have completely lost my music file which I downloaded from my Google account. I have all my music backed up to Google because of this very reason. My comp crashed and I lost everything but hey I still have my Sanity. I completely forgot I even posted on this site because it took me a long time to recover from the crash. But I'm back now and now I'm working on another project that maybe all of you can help me with. I want to build my own OS out of all my favorite features of the OS's I have used in the past. I may be a new user compared to most of you but I love everything about linux and now I really would love to give this a shit. I know this may take time but I m a very dedicated person when I put my mind to a project. I need all the help I can get. Thank you