absolute path results with ls

hawkmauk · 01-10-2006, 01:11 PM

I would like to use the command ls -R to search for files in various directories but I need an absolute path so as I can use the results in additional script.
I've had a look through the man pages but can't find anything on the subject, could anyone shed some light on this one for a newbie?

allelopath · 01-10-2006, 01:30 PM

Could you do a 'pwd' and append the path from ls -R to it?

puffinman · 01-10-2006, 01:46 PM

You might try locate for faster results and absolute paths.

hawkmauk · 01-10-2006, 01:59 PM

the files im searching for are in subdirectories of the pwd and the results are being used with grep as in

Code:

ls -R | grep "001.jpg"

for more info on the main application im working on see the thread 'Populating array in a "for .. in .." loop' lower down on this page - (sorry I can't link until I've posted 5 times)

schneidz · 01-10-2006, 02:07 PM

you'll want to use find.

# man find
# find . | grep "001.jpg"

Tinkster · 01-10-2006, 02:28 PM

find -name "001.jpg"

Cheers,
Tink

hawkmauk · 01-10-2006, 02:33 PM

Thanks thats a lot quicker and I didn't realise that the pipe could go both ways until you showed me that bit of code!

Hko · 01-10-2006, 05:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hawkmauk

[..] I didn't realise that the pipe could go both ways [..]

That's not what happens.

If you want the full path, try this:

Code:

find $PWD -name '*001.jpg'

hawkmauk · 01-12-2006, 05:21 AM

Thanks for all the feedback, the script works great with your help. But now im thinking of trying to recreate it using C, would anyone consider this to be better than using BASH?

It does call a java program to combine PDFs, would this cause a problem?

Code:

#!/bin/bash/
# This program combines multiple PDFs into a single multipage pdf

filedir=~/Desktop/Process/;		#text input files here
workdir=~/Desktop/OnlinePDF/;		#single pdf pages here
workfile=$1;				#name of text file passed at command
filename="$workfile"_`date +%h%d_%H%M`;	#name of output file

cd $workdir;
myfiles=( $(cat $filedir$workfile | while read part; do find . | grep $part; done ) );

#java program to combine pdf pages
joinPDF $filename.pdf ${myfiles[*]};

exit 0

Tinkster · 01-12-2006, 11:22 AM

It wouldn't cause a problem... but does it really make sense,
considering that most of the CPU cycles are going to be spent
on Java, anyway? I don't think you'd gain much performance,
since the majority of the actual processing in the bash-script
won't be the loop but a) the highly optimized find & grep (I
doubt that you'll write more efficient C code) and b) the chubby
java ... ;}

Cheers,
Tink

schneidz · 01-12-2006, 01:15 PM

i'd say as an excersize to sharpen your c is worth it.

off the top of my head, i would system(find) then strcmp(filename) //is there a function that does what find would do?

but like what tin said, not many mips you can buy.

in my college days i had a lab to create a 'my-ls', but i lost the source code...

hawkmauk · 01-16-2006, 12:49 PM

Thanks for the tips, I am only getting to grips with c and am treating the program as an exercise (although it does do an important job of saving me precious time at work!). My main reasoning for using c is to build in error checking and a user interface for my collegues who are command line shy and only use GUI's.

chrism01 · 01-16-2006, 09:33 PM

Good idea to implement it completely in C then, as calling system() means creating a new process env each time. Big overhead if you are calling within a loop.