How to copy a specific no of files from a group of files

biswa_nayak · 05-11-2008, 10:41 AM

Hi ALL,

I have a task to completed . There are around 20,000 files in the folder and i have to copy 1500 files from the current directory to a specific directory . How can i do it ??? Please guide me . it is very urgent

More to add , only 1500 files , not a single more than that or less than that

cmnorton · 05-11-2008, 11:02 AM

Do you want any 1,500 files?

Do you want 1,500 files using a filter, like a files beginning with 'b' or all executable files?

Suggest you start with the find command and develop a loop from that.

matthewg42 · 05-11-2008, 12:21 PM

You could use ls to list the files, and take the first or last 1500 of them using head or tail as you wish, e.g.

Code:

ls |head -1500 |while read f; do echo cp "$f" "/your/destination/directory/"

THat command will just echo the copy commands it will execute - check that they are sane and what you want to do, and then do the command again, but take out the echo.