[SOLVED] LN -s question

iammike2 · 10-31-2019, 07:30 PM

Need your help again.

I am using this snippet to make symlinks for a lot of files

Code:

for file in $(ls <source path with spaces>/. |grep jpg); do ln -s <source path with spaces>/$file <destination path with spaces>/$file  ; done

It works BUT, it doesn't handle files with special characters very well.

I tried with ' and " but no luck.

Thx in advance for any pointers.

scasey · 10-31-2019, 07:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iammike2

Need your help again.
I am using this snippet to make symlinks for a lot of files

Code:

for file in $(ls <source path with spaces>/. |grep jpg); do ln -s <source path with spaces>/$file <destination path with spaces>/$file  ; done

It works BUT, it doesn't handle files with special characters very well.
I tried with ' and " but no luck.

Thx in advance for any pointers.

Show us what you tried...where did you put the quotes. And what do you mean by "special characters"? Which characters?
Do the file names also have spaces?

EDIT: If you're trying to have links to the destination path, just linking the path should be all you need to do:

Code:

ln -s source/path destination/path/

You don't need a link for each file in the source.

Oh.. just noticed you only want to link jpg files...sorry...so please answer my questions...thanks.

iammike2 · 10-31-2019, 09:09 PM

Example of a file is: "Name of file - Screenshot (7).jpg" or "Name of file - Screenshot (1!).jpg" (without the quotes of course.

What I have tried I already thrown away

(but was just putting " and ' in several (random

) places and they failed)

Both the Source Path / Desti Path have spaces in it. Some files names have spaces some don't.

With "normal" files for example "File.T07.Sample.jpg" it works great, just not with the Special Chars.

I hope this answers your questions

scasey · 10-31-2019, 09:22 PM

Sorry you don’t recall what you tried...maybe you need to just try again to show us what doesn’t work

That said, try double quotes around the entire path/filenames:

Code:

”<source path with spaces>/$file”

etc.

Alternatively, clean up file names?

iammike2 · 10-31-2019, 09:50 PM

Clean up file names not possible unfortunately names have to stay intact.

Will try your suggestion !

iammike2 · 10-31-2019, 09:59 PM

Now I tried it with the quotes

This what the error is:

ln: failed to create symbolic link ‘./Name’: File exists
ln: failed to create symbolic link ‘./of’: File exists
ln: failed to create symbolic link ‘./file’: File exists
ln: failed to create symbolic link ‘./-’: File exists
ln: failed to create symbolic link ‘./Screenshot’: File exists

etc etc etc

And this is what the directory looks like afterwards

!(1).jpg
!(2).jpg
etc
etc
!name
!of
!file

All files are around 64-63 bytes in size

iammike2 · 10-31-2019, 10:12 PM

I now tried

Code:

for file in $(ls "source path with spaces/." |grep jpg); do ln -s <source path with spaces>/$file <destination path with spaces>/$file  ; done

for file in $(ls <source path with spaces>/. |grep jpg); do ln -s "source path with spaces/$file" <destination path with spaces>/$file  ; done

for file in $(ls <source path with spaces>/. |grep jpg); do ln -s <source path with spaces>/$file "<destination path with spaces>/$file"  ; done

and

for file in $(ls "source path with spaces/." |grep jpg); do ln -s "source path with spaces>/$file" "destination path with spaces>/$file"  ; done

And none work

scasey · 10-31-2019, 10:20 PM

I think we need to see a sample of

Code:

 ls <source path with spaces>/. |grep jpg)

...

iammike2 · 10-31-2019, 10:33 PM

Even going in the directory and removing the source path it fails, so changed the ls to this.

Code:

ls . | grep jpg

When I do this on the command line it shows all the files.

I am thinking of doing it manually via MC as that one works, but some dirs have 200+ files in them

Edit:
Name of files in that dir are for example
Name of file - Screenshot (7).jpg
Name of file - Screenshot (1!).jpg
etc etc

Source Path is something like "Screenshots Firefox dd 01-11"
Dest Path is exactly the same as Source

Source Path is on /volume1/Media
Dest Path is on /volume1/Screenshots

So a full directory looks like
Source: /volume1/Media/Screenshots Firefox dd 01-11/
Dest: /volume1/Screenshots/Screenshots Firefox dd 01-11/

scasey · 10-31-2019, 11:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scasey

I think we need to see a sample of

Code:

 ls <source path with spaces>/. |grep jpg)

...

Sorry. Repeating this. “See a sample of” not “tell us about...”. Use code tags.

We need to see the output of that command...If it’s a gazillion lines, just show us the first 2 or 3
I’m frankly not clear about what the dot at the end is doing.

iammike2 · 10-31-2019, 11:58 PM

If you read post #9, I changed the LS to

Code:

ls . |grep jpg

and I change into the source dir before running the commands.

What more samples do you want ??

I have no idea what more I can give you??

I already gave samples of file names [Post #2 and #9]
I already gave samples of dir name (both source and dest) [Post #9]
I already gave error messages [Post #6]
I already gave what the dest dir looks like after I ran the command [Post #6]
I already gave all the commands I tried [Post #7]

scasey · 11-01-2019, 12:19 AM

Third time...
Copy and paste the exact output of (the first few lines of)

Code:

 ls <source path with spaces>/. |grep jpg)

in code tags...

We (I) can’t debug the problem without seeing the actual output...
And this is just the first step...

iammike2 · 11-01-2019, 12:23 AM

Code:

me@NAS:/volume1/Media/Screenshots Firefox dd 01-11/$ ls . | grep jpg
Name of File - Screenshot (1).jpg
Name of File - Screenshot (2).jpg
Name of File - Screenshot (3).jpg
Name of File - Screenshot (4).jpg
Name of File - Screenshot (5).jpg
Name of File - Screenshot (6).jpg
Name of File - Screenshot (7!).jpg
etc etc etc etc etc etc

dest dir IS EMPTY so no point in posting that.

iammike2 · 11-01-2019, 12:35 AM

ok screenshot per screenshot

Code:

me@NAS:/volume1/Media/Screenshots Firefox dd 01-11/$ ls . | grep jpg
Name of File - Screenshot (1).jpg
Name of File - Screenshot (2).jpg
Name of File - Screenshot (3).jpg
Name of File - Screenshot (4).jpg
Name of File - Screenshot (5).jpg
Name of File - Screenshot (6).jpg
Name of File - Screenshot (7!).jpg
etc etc etc etc etc etc

Code:

me@NAS:/volume1/Media/Screenshots Firefox dd 01-11/$ for file in $(ls . |grep jpg); do ln -s $file /volume1/Screenshots/Screenshots Firefox dd 01-11/$file  ; done

Error messages

Code:

ln: failed to create symbolic link ‘./Name’: File exists
ln: failed to create symbolic link ‘./of’: File exists
ln: failed to create symbolic link ‘./file’: File exists
ln: failed to create symbolic link ‘./-’: File exists
ln: failed to create symbolic link ‘./Screenshot’: File exists

etc etc etc

And what the Dest Dir looks like afterwards

Code:

lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root     1 Nov  1 10:30 - -> -
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root     7 Nov  1 10:30 (1).jpg -> (1).jpg
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root     7 Nov  1 10:30 (2).jpg -> (2).jpg
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root     7 Nov  1 10:30 (3).jpg -> (3).jpg
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root     7 Nov  1 10:30 (4).jpg -> (4).jpg
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root     7 Nov  1 10:30 (5).jpg -> (5).jpg
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root     7 Nov  1 10:30 (6).jpg -> (6).jpg
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root     7 Nov  1 10:30 (7).jpg -> (7).jpg
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root     5 Nov  1 10:30 Name -> Name
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root     4 Nov  1 10:30 of -> of
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root    10 Nov  1 10:30 Screenshot -> Screenshot
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root     6 Nov  1 10:30 File -> File

Tried the command with without " with and without '

Shadow_7 · 11-01-2019, 01:43 AM

$ ln -s $EXISTING $NEW

If you're doing entire directories, perhaps lndir is in order? Kind of used to create ./build/ type things so you're not compiling in the "actual" source trees. AKA make clean is simple in the form of rm -rf ./build/ and such. Beyond that I've been known to use $VAR's of the ls output to get "odd" filenames to "move". Unicode and whatnot.

$ FILENAME=$(ls -l | head -n 23 | tail -n 1 | awk '{ print $9; }')
$ mv $FILENAME GFme$FILENAME
$ mv GFme* ./uRgone/