script to read paths

Christos Badogias · 11-04-2011, 06:51 AM

hallo for a newbie to shell programming!!i have to read all files from a folder,then open a new file which have all the paths from each file which i had read!!i begin like this:touch newfile,then make a loop to read the folder,using find and cp to copy it!then i use cat newfile!!!any help pls???

kbp · 11-04-2011, 07:01 AM

Code:

ls -l /my/folder > /myfile; cat /myfile

catkin · 11-04-2011, 07:20 AM

Or (more complete and more robust)

Code:

echo /my/folder/.* /my/folder/* > /tmp/myfile; cat /tmp/myfile

EDIT: ignore that -- it doesn't give one per line

catkin · 11-04-2011, 07:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Christos Badogias

hallo for a newbie to shell programming!!i have to read all files from a folder,then open a new file which have all the paths from each file which i had read!!i begin like this:touch newfile,then make a loop to read the folder,using find and cp to copy it!then i use cat newfile!!!any help pls???

What's the problem?

It would help if you posted what you have tried, any output and an explanation of how it differs from what you want.

Christos Badogias · 11-04-2011, 08:09 AM

sorry i can't understand very well!!is my first script and is a mess!i can't read the file(name task) and print the paths which files have in a new file(name paths.txt)....the paths.txt must create it!!!!!

suicidaleggroll · 11-04-2011, 09:23 AM

Are you trying to create a file that contains the names of all of the files in a directory, or do you have a directory full of files, each of which contains a list of files, and you're trying to create a single file that contains all of the filenames listed in each of the files in the directory?

It's hard to understand what you're trying to do. Maybe if you give an example it would be easier.

Christos Badogias · 11-04-2011, 10:14 AM

the second!!thank you!

suicidaleggroll · 11-04-2011, 11:51 AM

This should do what you want, of course you might want to clean it up a bit, but this should give you the general gist.

Code:

#!/bin/bash
rm -f /tmp/myfile
for i in /myfolder/*; do
   cat "$i" >> /tmp/myfile
done

Christos Badogias · 11-05-2011, 07:15 AM

I tried it and it worked but the problem is that it showed me only the files in my folder, but i want it to show the files in the subfolder which are in my folder. Have any idea how to do that?

catkin · 11-05-2011, 07:29 AM

Code:

#!/bin/bash
rm -f /tmp/myfile
for i in /myfolder/* /myfolder/*/*; do
   cat "$i" >> /tmp/myfile
done

That will not show files or directories beginning with a ".". For that you would want /myfolder/* /myfolder/.* /myfolder/*/* /myfolder/*/.* /myfolder/.*/* /myfolder/.*/.* which is getting messy and may result in errors when any of the patterns do not match files (depending on how bash is configured to expand unmatched file name patterns) and when the patterns match a directory.

Alternatively:

Code:

> /tmp/myfile  # Empty it
while IFS= read -r -d '' file
do
   cat "$file" >> /tmp/myfile
done < <(find /myfolder -type f -print0)

This will get all the files in all the subdirectories. f you want to restrict it to only the subdirectories of /myfolder, use find's -depth option.

suicidaleggroll · 11-05-2011, 11:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by catkin

Code:

#!/bin/bash
rm -f /tmp/myfile
for i in /myfolder/* /myfolder/*/*; do
   cat "$i" >> /tmp/myfile
done

That will not show files or directories beginning with a ".". For that you would want /myfolder/* /myfolder/.* /myfolder/*/* /myfolder/*/.* /myfolder/.*/* /myfolder/.*/.* which is getting messy and may result in errors when any of the patterns do not match files (depending on how bash is configured to expand unmatched file name patterns) and when the patterns match a directory.

Indeed, I make it a point to never include directories beginning in "." in my scripts unless explicitly required (almost never).

OP - if you would like to include subdirectories then you should use "find" as catkin suggested.

Christos Badogias · 11-06-2011, 08:51 AM

thanks for the help!!!