Maybe one of you guys has something like this at hand already? I tried to use robocopy on windows but to no avail. I also tried to write a bash script in linux with find etc... but gave up on that one also ^^ Google search brought no solution also unfortunately. I need this for my private photo library.
Solution could be linux or windows based, both are fine. Any ideas?
I would like to get rid of hundreds of 'intermediary folders'.
I define an 'intermediary folder' as a folder that contains nothing else than exactly one sub-folder. Example
folder 1
file in folder 1
folder 2 <-- 'intermediary folder: contains exactly one sub-folder, nothing else'
folder 3
file in folder 3
What I would like to end up with is:
folder 1
file in folder 1
folder 3
file in folder 3
I do not need the script to be recursive (removing several layers of intermediary folders at once), I'll just run it several times.
Even cooler would be if the script could rename folder 3 in the above example to 'folder 2 - folder 3', but I can live without this feature I guess.
I guess one of you linux experts has a one liner handy for that? ^^
Thank you very much!
Take a look at this code:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
shopt -s nullglob
while IFS= read -rd '' dir; do
f=("$dir"/*)
if ((${#f[#]}==1)) && [[ -d $f ]]; then
mv -t "${dir%/*}" "$f" || continue
rm -r "$dir"
fi
done < <(find folder1 -depth -mindepth 1 -type d -print0)
Explanation:
shopt -s nullglob: allows filename patterns which match no files to expand to a null string
find ... -depth: makes find traverse the file system in a depth-first order
find ... -mindepth 1: processes all directories except the starting-point
find ... -type d: finds only directories
find ... -print0: prints the directories separated by a null character \0 (to correctly handle possible newlines in filenames)
while IFS= read ...: loops over all the directories (the output of find)
f=("$dir"/*): creates an array with all files in the currently processed directory
((${#f[#]}==1)) && [[ -d $f ]]: true if there is only one file and it is a directory
mv -t "${dir%/*}" "$f": moves the only subdirectory one directory above
mv ... || continue: mv can fail if the subdirectory already exists in the directory above. || continue ignores such subdirectory
rm -r "$dir": removes the processed directory
Test run:
$ tree folder1
folder1
├── file1
├── folder2
│ └── folder3
│ └── file3
├── folder4
│ ├── file4a
│ ├── file4b
│ └── file4c
└── folder5
└── folder6
├── file6
└── folder7
└── folder8
└── folder9
├── dir9
└── file9
$ ./script
$ tree folder1
folder1
├── file1
├── folder3
│ └── file3
├── folder4
│ ├── file4a
│ ├── file4b
│ └── file4c
└── folder6
├── file6
└── folder9
├── dir9
└── file9
Related
Let's suppose there is a folder with several subfolders. In each subfolder there is a file, that has a different name depending on the folder. For example
basefolder
|________f1_1_1: video_1_1_1.mp4
|________f1_2_1: video_1_2_1.mp4
|
|_ .....
I want to write a shell script that do some processing on these files
So I have
search_dir=/path/to/the/basefolder/
for entry in "$search_dir"*/
do
echo "$entry"
#ls "$entry" #<--------HERE
echo "========================"
done
As you can see I can list the subfolders.
I want to do something like
process video_1_1_1.mp4 video_1_1_1_out.mp4
but the file name varies.
Yes I see that I can perhaps use the entry variable to compose the name of the file, but what if the files don't follow this pattern and the only thing I know is that they start with "video"?
Is there a way to get the name of the file in the folder so as to use it later?
Consider this file tree:
$ tree /tmp/test
/tmp/test
├── one
│ ├── one-1.mp4
│ ├── one-2.mp4
│ ├── one-3.mp4
│ ├── video-1.mp4
│ └── video-2.mp4
└── two
├── two-1.mp4
├── two-2.mp4
├── two-3.mp4
├── video-1.mp4
└── video-2.mp4
2 directories, 10 files
You can use a recursive glob to find all the .mp4 files in that tree:
$ for fn in "/tmp/test/"**/*".mp4"; do echo "$fn"; done
/tmp/test/one/one-1.mp4
/tmp/test/one/one-2.mp4
/tmp/test/one/one-3.mp4
/tmp/test/one/video-1.mp4
/tmp/test/one/video-2.mp4
/tmp/test/two/two-1.mp4
/tmp/test/two/two-2.mp4
/tmp/test/two/two-3.mp4
/tmp/test/two/video-1.mp4
/tmp/test/two/video-2.mp4
Or just the ones starting with video:
$ for fn in "/tmp/test/"**/"video-"*".mp4"; do echo "$fn"; done
/tmp/test/one/video-1.mp4
/tmp/test/one/video-2.mp4
/tmp/test/two/video-1.mp4
/tmp/test/two/video-2.mp4
Instead of echo you can process...
If process involves more than one file, you can use xargs.
You can also use find:
$ find "/tmp/test/" -iname "video*.mp4" -type f
/tmp/test//one/video-1.mp4
/tmp/test//one/video-2.mp4
/tmp/test//two/video-1.mp4
/tmp/test//two/video-2.mp4
Then you would construct a pipe to xargs or use find -exec:
$ find [ what ] -print0 | xargs -0 process # xargs way
$ find [ what ] -exec process {} + # modern find
I'm trying to utilize a bash script to delete some unwanted files with the same name in different directories, eg: text1.txt exists in multiple directories and I wish to remove it in every directory it exists in.
I need the script to delete the unwanted files and then also delete the directory in which that filename 'text1.txt' exists, so if it exists in a folder named 'TextFiles' I need that folder directory to be deleted.
This is my current code I'm working on:
for files in "/*"
do
rm file.1txt file2.txt file3.txt
I'm a bit curious about whether the "/*" will look into all directories and whether the 'do' is working to remove the files stated.
Also, after utilising the 'rm' to remove specific files how do I delete the directory it exists in.
Many thanks!
Before I start, I have to note that the rm command can do some nasty things in your system. Automating it can lead to unintended data loss (system or personal files and folders) if used carelessly.
Now that I said that, imagine the following file structure:
bhuiknei#debian:~/try$ tree
.
├── dir1
│ └── this.txt
└── dir2
├── dir3
│ ├── this
│ └── this.txt
├── notthis.txt
└── this.txt
3 directories, 5 files
To find and filter specific files find and grep are your friends. The "-w" option will match to whole words only (so the notthis.txt is not picked up):
bhuiknei#debian:~/try$ find . | grep -w this.txt
./dir1/this.txt
./dir2/dir3/this.txt
./dir2/this.txt
Now that we have all paths for the files lined up, these can be piped into a while loop where we can delete the files one-by-one. Then the empty directories can be deleted in a second step.
I would not suggest deleting the containing folders forcibly as they might contain other files and folders too.
The following script does the trick:
#!/bin/bash
#Exiting if no file name was given
[[ $# -ne 1 ]] && { echo "Specify a filename to delete in all sub folders"; exit 1; }
#Deleting files matching input parameter
echo "Deleting all files named ${1} in current and sub-directories."
find . | grep -w "$1" | \
while IFS= read LINE; do
rm -v "$LINE"
done
#Deleting only-empty folders
rmdir -v *
exit 0
And the result:
bhuiknei#debian:~/try$ tree
.
├── dir1
│ └── this.txt
├── dir2
│ ├── dir3
│ │ ├── this
│ │ └── this.txt
│ ├── notthis.txt
│ └── this.txt
└── script
3 directories, 6 files
bhuiknei#debian:~/try$ ./script this.txt
Deleting all files named this.txt in current and sub-directories.
removed './dir1/this.txt'
removed './dir2/dir3/this.txt'
removed './dir2/this.txt'
rmdir: removing directory, 'dir1'
rmdir: removing directory, 'dir2'
rmdir: failed to remove 'dir2': Directory not empty
rmdir: removing directory, 'script'
rmdir: failed to remove 'script': Not a directory
bhuiknei#debian:~/try$ tree
.
├── dir2
│ ├── dir3
│ │ └── this
│ └── notthis.txt
└── script
2 directories, 3 files
Also a side note: I didn't test what happens if the working directory is different where the script is located, so make sure to run it locally from the parent dir, or add some protection. Working with absolute paths can be a solution.
Good luck!
You know the extension of the file name and so you can utilise this in a loop parsing the output of find with parameter expansion and so:
find /path -name "file1.txt" | while read var
do
echo "rm -Rf ${var%/file1.txt}" # echo the command
# rm -Rf "${var%/file1.txt}" # execute the command when sure that command list as expected
done
${var%/file1.txt} -
will expand the output from find and expand the output only up to /file1.txt (the directory) rm -Rf will then force removal the directory along with the file
Alternatively you can use printf natively in find to print only the directory without the file:
find /path -name "file1.txt" -printf "%h\n" | while read var
do
echo "rm -Rf $var" # echo the command
# rm -Rf "$var" # execute the command when sure that command list as expected
done
I'm looking to make a crontab that will search through a directory and all subdirectories and find all files with extension *.mkv then move them to a different directory and create an empty file with the same name and extension in place of the original file.
So it would look like this:
find *.mkv in subdirectories of /home/user/directoryA/~
move *.mkv to /home/user/directoryB/
create empty *.mkv with same filename as the original in place of file in /home/user/directoryA/~
What would be the best way to accomplish this?
The process isn't too difficult if you recognize that when forming your new directory names, your old base directory will simply be a substring within the new directory name. Bash provides a parameter expansion with substring replacement that is tailor made for this process.
Essentially, you find each file below your source directory with the *.mkv extension, you use parameter expansion with substring replacement to form the new full-filename containing your destination directory, (e.g. nffn="${ffn/$srcdir/$destdir}", where ffn is short for full-filename and nffn short for new full-filename)
With your new full-filename formed containing the updated path, it is just a matter of making sure the destination directory exists before moving the file. mkdir -p is perfect here as it will create the full path, and will not complain if the directory already exists. You simply use a parameter expansin with substring removal to isolate the new directory from the new full-filename to pass to mkdir -p, and finally, you check that mkdir -p succeeds or you handle the error, e.g.
## create new directory, handle error if create fails
mkdir -p "${nffn%/*}" || {
echo "error: creating '${nffn%/*}'" >&2
exit 1
}
Putting all the pieces together, you can do what you are attempting with a short script similar to the following.
#!/bin/bash
## source and destination directories, file pattern
# (note: to change destdir, two arguments required
# to change patrn, three arguments required)
srcdir="${1:-/home/david/dev/src-c/tmp/debug/AAA}"
destdir="${2:-/home/david/dev/src-c/tmp/debug/BBB}"
patrn="${3:-*.mkv}"
while read -r ffn; do ## loop over each full-filename
nffn="${ffn/$srcdir/$destdir}" ## form new full-filename
## create new directory, handle error if create fails
mkdir -p "${nffn%/*}" || {
echo "error: creating '${nffn%/*}'" >&2
exit 1
}
mv "$ffn" "$nffn" ## move full-filename to new full-filename
touch "$ffn" ## touch full-filename for zero original
done < <(find "$srcdir" -name "$patrn")
(note: you can pass the directories and file pattern as positional parameters, but note, if you pass more than 1, you must pass each required parameter (or you could implement getotp))
Initial Directories AAA & BBB
$ tree AAA
AAA
├── a.mkv
├── b.mkv
├── dir1
│ ├── a.mkv
│ └── b.mkv
├── dir2
│ ├── a.mkv
│ └── b.mkv
├── dir3
│ ├── a.mkv
│ └── b.mkv
└── dira
├── a.mkv
└── b.mkv
$ tree BBB
BBB [error opening dir]
Final Directories AAA & BBB
$ bash mvemptydir.sh
$ tree AAA
AAA
├── a.mkv
├── b.mkv
├── dir1
│ ├── a.mkv
│ └── b.mkv
├── dir2
│ ├── a.mkv
│ └── b.mkv
├── dir3
│ ├── a.mkv
│ └── b.mkv
└── dira
├── a.mkv
└── b.mkv
$ tree BBB
BBB
├── a.mkv
├── b.mkv
├── dir1
│ ├── a.mkv
│ └── b.mkv
├── dir2
│ ├── a.mkv
│ └── b.mkv
├── dir3
│ ├── a.mkv
│ └── b.mkv
└── dira
├── a.mkv
└── b.mkv
Look things over and let me know if you have further questions.
you can write a script like this :
#!/bin/bash
cd /[ADDRESS]
find . -name *.mkv > /tmp/find_result.txt
mv `cut -f1 /tmp/find_result.txt` /backup/
touch `cut -f1 /tmp/find_result.txt`
1- go to your directory that you want to find this files
2- find all .mkv files and send the result to a file like /tmp/find_result.txt in this example
3- move all files (that save in file "/tmp/find_result.txt") to your desired directory (like "/backup" in this example)
4- finaly create empty file with same name (that save in file "/tmp/find_result.txt")
you can add this script to crontab.
You could use a loop to do this for each file matching your criteria!
for f in `find . -name *.mkv`; do
mv $f /home/user/directoryB/
touch $f
done;
If you wanted to get fancy you could put this into a script and accept directoryA/B as arguments:
for f in `find $1 -name *.mkv`; do mv $f $2; touch $f; done;
and run as ./script.sh /home/user/directoryA/~ /home/user/directoryB/
I am looking for a way to archive all files of certain file types in one zip file per subfolder.
My folder structure is as follows:
/path/to
└── TopLevel
├── SubLevel1
│ ├── SubSubLevel1
│ ├── SubSubLevel2
│ └── SubSubLevel3
├── SubLevel2
│ ├── SubSubLevel1
│ ├── SubSubLevel2
│ └── SubSubLevel3
├── SubLevel3
│ ├── SubSubLevel1
│ └── SubSubLevel2
└── SubLevel4
In each folder or subfolder or sub-subfolder, there are files of the file type *.abc, *.xyz and also *.001 through *.999 and all these files I want to compress into one zip file per folder, i.e. all files of the specified types in folder "SubSubLevel1" of "SubLevel1" of "TopLevel" should be packaged into one file named "SubSubLevel1_data.zip" inside the "SubSubLevel1" folder. All other files in these folders, which do not match the search criteria as described above, should be kept unzipped in the same directory.
I have found some ideas here or here, but both approaches are based on a different way of archiving the files and I have so far not found a way to adopt them to my needs since I am not very experienced with shell scripting. I have also tried to get a solution with AppleScript, but there I face the problem how to get all files in the folder with the number as an extension (*.001 through *.999). With RegEx, I would do something like ".abc|.xyz.\d\d\d" which would cover my search for certain file types, but I am also not sure now how to implement the result of a grep in AppleScript.
I guess someone out there must have an idea how to address my archiving issue. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
After some playing around I came up with the following solution:
#!/bin/bash
shopt -s nullglob
find -E "$PWD" -type d -maxdepth 1 -regex ".*201[0-5][0-1][0-9].*" -print0 | while IFS="" read -r -d "" thisFolder ; do
echo "The current folder is: $thisFolder"
to_archive=( "$thisFolder"/*.[Aa][Bb][Cc] "$thisFolder"/*.[Xx][Yy][Zz] "$thisFolder"/*.[0-9][0-9][0-9] )
if [ ${#to_archive[#]} != 0 ]
then
7z a -mx=9 -uz1 -x!.DS_Store "$thisFolder"/"${thisFolder##*/}"_data.7z "${to_archive[#]}" && rm "${to_archive[#]}"
fi
find "$thisFolder" -type d -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -print0 | while IFS="" read -r -d "" thisSubFolder ; do
echo "The current subfolder is: $thisSubFolder"
to_archive=( "$thisSubFolder"/*.[Aa][Bb][Cc] "$thisSubFolder"/*.[Xx][Yy][Zz] "$thisSubFolder"/*.[0-9][0-9][0-9] )
if [ ${#to_archive[#]} != 0 ]
then
7z a -mx=9 -uz1 -x!.DS_Store "$thisSubFolder"/"${thisSubFolder##*/}"_data.7z "${to_archive[#]}" && rm "${to_archive[#]}"
fi
done
done
My script has two nested for loops to iterate through subfolders and sub-subfolders. With "find" I look for a regex pattern in order to only backup folders from 2010-2015 . All files matching the specified extensions inside the folders are compressed in one target archive per folder.
I have a folder structure like this
a/
-b/
-c.txt
-d.txt
-backups/
I want to move the contents of folder a into backups so the folder structure is this.
a/
-b/
-c.txt
-d.txt
-backups/
-b/
-c.txt
-d.txt
Here are the commands I have used so far.
for d in a/*/ ; do
mkdir -p ${d}backups/
cp -ra ${d}* backups
done
I make the folder backups then I try to copy the content into the backups folder. However, I get the error: CP Hardlink cannot copy folder onto itself. How can i do this?
Thank You
a
├── b
├── backups
├── c.txt
└── d.txt
2 directories, 2 files
Enable extglob
by shopt -s extglob and execute cp -r !(backups/) backups. The following will be the result:
a
├── b
├── backups
│ ├── b
│ ├── c.txt
│ └── d.txt
├── c.txt
└── d.txt
3 directories, 4 files
it is trying to copy "backups" into "backups" , so you need to make sure you exclude "backups" from the a/*/ pattern.
you should probably use "find" to find files with a given pattern and exclude the "backup" directory. With find you can do "-not -name backup"