mv and regular expressions, mv file(_*).foo folder

jmcejuela · 04-01-2009, 01:14 PM

How to do something like:

mv file(_*).foo folder

that is, move file.foo and, and optionally if existing, file_*.foo to folder

Does mv accept regular expressions like this? How is it done? It certainly accepts [] or other special characters, but not the brackets.

Thank you for your time

emetib · 04-01-2009, 01:20 PM

mv file*.foo folder

don't use the brackets
you can also use quotes if you have special characters

mv "file*.foo" folder

David1357 · 04-01-2009, 03:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmcejuela

It certainly accepts [] or other special characters, but not the brackets.

"mv" never sees the "[]" characters. They are expanded by the shell. Read up on "Pattern Matching" in the man page for bash.

Assuming you are using bash, you can get what you want using

Code:

[user@machine:~]:shopt -s extglob
[user@machine:~]:mv file?(_*).foo folder

synss · 04-01-2009, 03:35 PM

If you want to restrict to the filenames you mention, go with

Code:

mv file{,_*}.foo folder