How to join about 100 "*.eps" files

madani · 11-11-2009, 02:14 PM

Hi,
I'd like to join about 100 "*.eps" files which are located in different subdirectories of a directory . please show me the best way and tell me how.(please guide me step by step---I'm a newbie ! )

Much much thanks in advance.

If it's possible teach me an easy way to produce a caption for each one.

ammorais · 11-11-2009, 02:40 PM

Open a terminal.

write this:

Code:

mkdir eps
find /path/to/files -name "*.eps" -exec mv -v {} eps \;

Replace /path/to/files with the path to where the files are.

Quote:

If it's possible teach me an easy way to produce a caption for each one.

What do you mean with "caption"?

PS: I just realize that you may want to join the eps. So I reponded wrongly to your question.

PTrenholme · 11-11-2009, 02:57 PM

Building on ammorais' comment, above, here's another way (without captions, since I, too, have no idea of your meaning of "caption"):

Code:

cat $(find /path/to/files -name "*.eps") > /path/to/combined_eps_file

<edit>
Note that "path/to/files" is the name of the directory (or "folder" to use the desktop metaphor) containing the directories containing the .eps files. For example, if you didn't mind waiting for the search to finish, and all the eps files were under your home directory, the command to list them all would be find ~/ -name *.eps.

And, since you mentioned that you weren't (yet) too familiar with the Linux bash "command line" language, the expression $(<some command>) means "the result that would have been displayed if the command was run outside of the $( . . . )capture function. (And, to confuse even more, instead of $( . . . ) you can use ` . . . `, but do be careful: those are back-quotes, not single-quotes in the alternative expression.)

And cat is a command that concatenates all the files in it's argument list into a single file that's written to the "standard output" (i.e., your display). Except that the > redirects the "standard output" to the file named after the >.
</edit>

chrism01 · 11-11-2009, 06:35 PM

You might want to read this; a good guide to the cmd line toolset http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz

madani · 11-12-2009, 04:58 AM

much thanks for your kind attention.
I did your advice but I encountered many Errors, and yet no result.

First of all I copied "1.5eta0.01.eps , ro2ndapproach.eps " to "/home/Noushin
" .Then I tried following forms of recommended command::

[Noushin@81 ~]$ cat $(-name "*.eps") > out.eps
bash: -name: command not found

[Noushin@81 ~]$ cat $(-name "*.ps") > out.ps
bash: -name: command not found

[Noushin@81 ~]$ cat $(-name "*.eps") > out.eps
bash: -name: command not found

[Noushin@81 ~]$ cat $(name "*.eps") > out.eps
bash: name: command not found

[Noushin@81 ~]$ cat $( "*.eps") > out.eps
bash: *.eps: command not found

[Noushin@81 ~]$ cat $( " .eps") > out.eps
bash: .eps: command not found

[Noushin@81 ~]$ cat $(*.eps) > out.eps
bash: 1.5eta0.01.eps: command not found

[Noushin@81 ~]$ cat $ *.eps > out.eps
cat: $: No such file or directory
[Noushin@81 ~]$ cat *.eps > out.eps
cat: out.eps: input file is output file
[Noushin@81 ~]$ cat 1.5eta0.01.eps ro2ndapproach.eps > out.eps
[Noushin@81 ~]$

PTrenholme · 11-12-2009, 08:51 AM

Well, yes, I can see where you'd have a problem. The secret is to use the whole command inside the $(), not just the arguments to the command. The whole command is, again, cat $(find /path/to/files -name "*.eps") > /path/to/combined_eps_file or, using your example, cat $(find ~/ -name "*.eps") > out.eps where I highlighted the part you left out in red.

Suggestion: Select the whole command, press Ctrl-C to copy it, go to you terminal window, and press Ctrl-Shift-V to paste the command into the terminal. (Please don't forget the "Shift" in the paste part. For historical reasons, a "terminal window" is emulating an old display system, and those system used unshifted control characters for special purposes.)

<edit>
Another thing to remember, if you're use to other computer systems, is that Linux systems are case sensitive, and almost all commands must be entered in lower case.
</edit>

madani · 11-12-2009, 03:36 PM

Again Thanks ; I did as you said and found just one of '.eps ' files in created 'out.eps', receiving as below in terminal:: (I should say that I had 5 '.eps' files in the folder[Noushin@81 ~]$ )

[Noushin@81 ~]$ cat $(find ~/ -name "*.eps") > out.eps
cat: /home/Noushin/2BAND-GSimpson/U-scan/0.4/n220eta0.1/u=0.4: No such file or directory
cat: eta=0.01-n=220.eps: No such file or directory
cat: /home/Noushin/2BAND-GSimpson/U-scan/0.4/n220eta0.01/u=0.4: No such file or directory
cat: eta=0.01-n=220.eps: No such file or directory
cat: /home/Noushin/.Trash/out: No such file or directory
cat: (4th: No such file or directory
cat: copy).eps: No such file or directory
cat: /home/Noushin/.Trash/out: No such file or directory
cat: (3rd: No such file or directory
cat: copy).eps: No such file or directory
cat: /home/Noushin/.Trash/out: No such file or directory
cat: (copy).eps: No such file or directory
cat: /home/Noushin/.Trash/out: No such file or directory
cat: (another: No such file or directory
cat: copy).eps: No such file or directory
[Noushin@81 ~]$

Besides this problem , May you tell me how to join the files that are in different directories and in a large number??

Best Regards
Noushin

PTrenholme · 11-12-2009, 06:37 PM

Ah, well, things get trickier when the file names contain blanks since bash, by default, uses white-space as its field delimiter. So, try this:
IFS=$'\n';cat "$(find ~/ -name '*.eps')" > out.eps
where the input field delimiter is reset to the new-line character by the IFS=$'\n' and the double-quotes around the $(...) tell bash to return each field surrounded by quotes.

As for your second question, generally speaking cat will concatenate every file in its argument list into the file specified to the right of the redirection symbol (the >). If you'd feel more comfortable processing fewer files, or if you get an error message that you've exceeded the maximum number of characters permitted in a command line, then something like this might work:
IFS=$'\n';files="cat "$(find ~/ -name '*.eps')";echo-n ""> out.eps;for f in "${files}";do echo "${f}" >> out.eps;cat "${f}" >> out.eps;done

Now, that's actually a "bash script" which could be written like this:

PHP Code:



#!/bin/bash
# Change the field separator to be only a newline character
IFS=$'\n'
# Get the list of all *.eps files inside or under the user's home directory
files="$(find ~/ -name '*.eps')"
# Create an empty output file
echo -n "">out.eps
# Loop through the list of files returned by the find command
for f in "${files}"
do
# Add the input file name to the output as a "caption" (You can, of course, echo anything you want here.)
   echo "${f}" >> out.eps
# And copy the file contents to the out.eps file
   cat "${f}" >> out.eps
done

Note that a single redirection symbol (>) means "create or replace the output file with the redirected output" and a doubled redirection symbol (>>) means "append the redirected output to the existing file contents."

madani · 11-13-2009, 05:34 PM

I have my sourse directories in "1".
I act exactly as you said (in a terminal), but again just an empty output file ! .... ::

[root@81 Desktop]# IFS=$'\n'
[root@81 Desktop]# files="$(find 1/ -name '*.eps')"
[root@81 Desktop]# echo -n "">out.eps
[root@81 Desktop]# for f in "${files}"
> do
> echo "${f}" >> out.eps
>
> cat "${f}" >> out.eps
> done
cat: 1/n400-converged/test.eps
1/n800/ImReGa33.eps: No such file or directory
[root@81 Desktop]#

PTrenholme · 11-15-2009, 12:27 PM

Well, the output file you created was out.eps, and the file that cat could not find was 1/n800/ImReGa33.eps.

Try cat out.eps instead. (The argument of the redirection directive (the > or >>) is the name of the file to which the output is redirected.)

I've written a script that you might be able to use, but it is completely untested. The UNTESTED script is below. To use it, copy it to a file and use the command chmod o+x to make it executable. Then run it by entering the file name (folled by the arguments) in a terminal window. Use file_name --help for a description of the arguments an their defaults.

I'm sorry that I haven't been able to test the script, but I have just been released from the hospital following major surgery, and find my energy level quite low.

Here's the script:

Code:

#!/bin/bash                                       
# Script to create a set of directories containing N subdirectories from all the subdirectories of a given directory                                                                                                            
#                                                                                                               
function local_help()                                                                                           
{                                                                                                               
  cat <<EOF                                                                                                     
$0: Create a set of directories containing N subdirectories from all the subdirectories of a given directory    

Usage $0 [-h | --help] {[-N | --size] nunber} {[-B | --base] string} {[-D | --source] path} {[-G | --grouped] path}                                                                                                             

Options: -h | --help : Print this message
         -N number   : Number of sub-irectories in each group [Default: 20]
         -D path     : Path to directory containig the sub-directories to be grouped [Default: Current directory]                                                                                                               
         -G path     : Path to directory to contain the grouped sub-directories [Default: ../Groups]             
         -B string   : Base name for groups if sub-directories [Default: COMPLETE]                              

EOF
  exit 0
}       
function abort()
{               
  echo $0: Error $@ >&2
  exit 1               
}                      
# Do we have any arguments? If not, print the help message and abort.
[ $# -eq 0 ] && local_help                                           
#                                                                    
# Parse the arguments                                                
Opt=$(getopt -o hN::n::D::d::G::g::B::b:: --long help size base source grouped -n "$0" -- "$@")
# Did that work?                                                                               
[ $? -ne 0 ] && echo $0: Could not parse arguments. Aborting. >>&2 && exit 1                   
eval set -- "$Opt"                                                                             
#                                                                                              
# Set the default argument values                                                              
N=20                 # Number of sub-directories in each group                                 
D="$(pwd)"           # Directory containg the sub-directories to be grouped                    
G="$D"/../groups     # Directory to contain the groups of N sub-directories                    
B="COMPLETE"         # Base name for groups                                                    

while true ; do
        case "$1" in
                -h|--help) local_help;;
                -N|-n|--size)          
                        case "$2" in   
                                "") shift 2 ;;
                                *)  N=$2 ; shift 2 ;;
                        esac ;;                      
                -D|-d|--source)                      
                        case "$2" in                 
                                "") shift 2 ;;       
                                *)  D=$2 ; shift 2 ;;
                        esac ;;                      
                -G|-g|--grouped)                     
                        case "$2" in                 
                                "") shift 2 ;;       
                                *)  G=$2 ; shift 2 ;;
                        esac ;;                      
                -B|-b|--base)                        
                        case "$2" in                 
                                "") shift 2 ;;       
                                *)  B=$2 ; shift 2 ;;
                        esac ;;                      
                --) shift ; break ;;                 
                *) echo $0: Error parsing arguments ; exit 1 ;;
        esac                                                   
done                                                           
# Sanity checks                                                
[ -d "$D" ] || abort "\"$D\" is not a directory"               
[ -d "$G" ] || ( mkdir "$G" && [ $? -ne 0 ] && abort "\"$G\" does not exist and could not be created.")
#                                                                                                      
# Find the last used group number                                                                      
L=0                                                                                                    
dirs=$(find "$G" -name "$B"* -prune -print0)                                                           
if ! [ -z "$dirs" ]                                                                                    
then
  IFS=$'\x0'
  for d in $dirs
  do
    M=$(($($d/*$B/)))
    [ $M -gt $L ] && L=$M
  done
fi
#
# Get the list of sub-directories of $D
dirs=$(find "$D" -type d -prune -print0)
[ -z "$dirs" ] && abort "\"$D\" contained no subdirectories."
#
# Set the initial values
count=0
M=$(($M+1))
out="$G"/"$B"_$M
mkdir -p "$out"
[ $? -ne 0 ] && abort "Could not create output directory \"$out\"."
#
# Move the sub-directories in groups of N into the group directory
for d in $dirs
do
  count=$(($count+1))
  if [ $count -gt $N ]
  then
    M=$(($M+1))
    out="$G"/"$B"_$M
    mkdir -p "$out"
    [ $? -ne 0 ] && abort "Could not create output directory \"$out\"."
    count=1
  fi
  mv "$d" "$out"
  [ $? -ne 0 ] && abort "Could not move \"$d\" into directory \"$out\"."
done

<edit>
By the way, I notice from your output that you're logged in as "root," instead of logging in as a regular used. Be warned that the above script, if run as "root," may cause irreparable harm you your system and will, at least, create subdirectories in unexpected places.

Several of the access-control checks on which the script relies will be bypassed if it is run with "root" access.

Note also that, as a general rule, "root" access should only be used foe administrative pruposes, and never used when running scripts provided by strangers over the Internet.
</edit>

madani · 11-16-2009, 12:57 AM

Much much thanks to you, PTrenholme, for your descriptive replys
and compassinate regards.
I hope you go well and gain an up energy level soon.

Bests,
madani