Given variable with name template , for example: template=*.txt.
How can I check if files with name like this template exist in the current directory?
For example, according to the value of the template above, I want to know if there is files with the suffix .txt in the current directory.
I would do it like this with just built-ins:
templcheck () {
for f in * .*; do
[[ -f $f ]] && [[ $f = $1 ]] && return 0
done
return 1
}
This takes the template as an argument (must be quoted to prevent premature expansion) and returns success if there was a match in the current directory. This should work for any filenames, including those with spaces and newlines.
Usage would look like this:
$ ls
file1.txt 'has space1.txt' script.bash
$ templcheck '*.txt' && echo yes
yes
$ templcheck '*.md' && echo yes || echo no
no
To use with the template contained in a variable, that expansion has to be quoted as well:
templcheck "$template"
Use find:
: > found.txt # Ensure the file is empty
find . -prune -exec find -name "$template" \; > found.txt
if [ -s found.txt ]; then
echo "No matching files"
else
echo "Matching files found"
fi
Strictly speaking, you can't assume that found.txt contains exactly one file name per line; a filename with an embedded newline will look the same as two separate files. But this does guarantee that an empty file means no matching files.
If you want an accurate list of matching file names, you need to disable field splitting while keeping pathname expansion.
[[ -v IFS ]] && OLD_IFS=$IFS
IFS=
shopt -s nullglob
files=( $template )
[[ -v OLD_IFS ]] && IFS=$OLD_IFS
printf "Found: %s\n" "${files[#]}"
This requires several bash extensions (the nullglob option, arrays, and the -v operator for convenience of restoring IFS). Each element of the array is exactly one match.
Related
subjects_list=$(ls -l /Volumes/Backup_Plus/PPMI_10 | awk '{ print $NF }')
filepath="/Volumes/Backup_Plus/PPMI_10/$subjects/*/*/S*/"
for subjects in $subjects_list; do
if [[ -f "${filepath}/*.bval" && -f "${filepath}/*.bvec" && -f "${filepath}/*.json" && -f "${filepath}/*.nii.gz" ]]; then
echo "${subjects}" >> /Volumes/Backup_Plus/PPMI_10/keep_subjects.txt
else
echo "${subjects}" >> /Volumes/Backup_Plus/PPMI_10/not_keep_subjects.txt
fi
done
problem is supposedly in the if statement, I tried this...
bvalfile = (*.bval)
bvecfile =(*.bvec)
jsonfile =(*.json)
niigzfile =(*.nii.gz)
if [[ -f "$bvalfile" && -f "$bvecfile" && -f "$jsonfile" && -f "$niigzfile" ]]; then
however that didn't work. Any help with syntax or errors or does it need to be changed completely. Trying to separate the files that have .^file types from those that don't by making two lists.
thanks
You're assigning filepath outside the for-subject loop but using the unset variable $subjects in it. You want to move that inside the loop.
Double-quoted wildcards aren't expanded, so both $filepath and your -f test will be looking for filenames with literal asterisks in them.
-f only works on a single file, so even if you fix the quotes, you'll have a syntax error if there's more than one file matching the pattern.
So I think what you want is something like this:
# note: array assignment -
# shell does the wildcard expansion, no ls required
prefix_list=( /Volumes/Backup_Plus/PPMI_10/* )
# and array expansion
for prefix in "${prefix_list[#]}"; do
# the subject is just the last component of the path
subject=${prefix##*/}
# start by assuming we're keeping this one
decision=keep
# in case filepath pattern matches more than one directory, loop over them
for filepath in "$prefix"/*/*/S*/; do
# if any of the files don't exist, switch to not keeping it
for file in "$filepath"/{*.bval,*.bvec,*.json,*.nii.gz}; do
if [[ ! -f "$file" ]]; then
decision=not_keep
# we have our answer and can stop looping now
break 2
fi
done
done
# now append to the correct list
printf '%s\n' "$subject" >>"/Volumes/Backup_Plus/PPMI_10/${decision}_subjects.txt"
done
I'm hoping this is a simple question, since I've never done shell scripting before. I'm trying to filter certain files out of a list of results. While the script executes and prints out a list of files, it's not filtering out the ones I don't want. Thanks for any help you can provide!
#!/bin/bash
# Purpose: Identify all *md files in H2 repo where there is no audit date
#
#
#
# Example call: no_audits.sh
#
# If that call doesn't work, try ./no_audits.sh
#
# NOTE: Script assumes you are executing from within the scripts directory of
# your local H2 git repo.
#
# Process:
# 1) Go to H2 repo content directory (assumption is you are in the scripts dir)
# 2) Use for loop to go through all *md files in each content sub dir
# and list all file names and directories where audit date is null
#
#set counter
count=0
# Go to content directory and loop through all 'md' files in sub dirs
cd ../content
FILES=`find . -type f -name '*md' -print`
for f in $FILES
do
if [[ $f == "*all*" ]] || [[ $f == "*index*" ]] ;
then
# code to skip
echo " Skipping file: " $f
continue
else
# find audit_date in file metadata
adate=`grep audit_date $f`
# separate actual dates from rest of the grepped line
aadate=`echo $adate | awk -F\' '{print $2}'`
# if create date is null - proceed
if [[ -z "$aadate" ]] ;
then
# print a list of all files without audit dates
echo "Audit date: " $aadate " " $f;
count=$((count+1));
fi
fi
done
echo $count " files without audit dates "
First, to address the immediate issue:
[[ $f == "*all*" ]]
is only true if the exact contents of f is the string *all* -- with the wildcards as literal characters. If you want to check for a substring, then the asterisks shouldn't be quoted:
[[ $f = *all* ]]
...is a better-practice solution. (Note the use of = rather than == -- this isn't essential, but is a good habit to be in, as the POSIX test command is only specified to permit = as a string comparison operator; if one writes [ "$f" == foo ] by habit, one can get unexpected failures on platforms with a strictly compliant /bin/sh).
That said, a ground-up implementation of this script intended to follow best practices might look more like the following:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
count=0
while IFS= read -r -d '' filename; do
aadate=$(awk -F"'" '/audit_date/ { print $2; exit; }' <"$filename")
if [[ -z $aadate ]]; then
(( ++count ))
printf 'File %q has no audit date\n' "$filename"
else
printf 'File %q has audit date %s\n' "$filename" "$aadate"
fi
done < <(find . -not '(' -name '*all*' -o -name '*index*' ')' -type f -name '*md' -print0)
echo "Found $count files without audit dates" >&2
Note:
An arbitrary list of filenames cannot be stored in a single bash string (because all characters that might otherwise be used to determine where the first name ends and the next name begins could be present in the name itself). Instead, read one NUL-delimited filename at a time -- emitted with find -print0, read with IFS= read -r -d ''; this is discussed in [BashFAQ #1].
Filtering out unwanted names can be done internal to find.
There's no need to preprocess input to awk using grep, as awk is capable of searching through input files itself.
< <(...) is used to avoid the behavior in BashFAQ #24, wherein content piped to a while loop causes variables set or modified within that loop to become unavailable after its exit.
printf '...%q...\n' "$name" is safer than echo "...$name..." when handling unknown filenames, as printf will emit printable content that accurately represents those names even if they contain unprintable characters or characters which, when emitted directly to a terminal, act to modify that terminal's configuration.
Nevermind, I found the answer here:
bash script to check file name begins with expected string
I tried various versions of the wildcard/filename and ended up with:
if [[ "$f" == *all.md ]] || [[ "$f" == *index.md ]] ;
The link above said not to put those in quotes, and removing the quotes did the trick!
As an exercise I have set myself the task of recursively listing files using bash builtins. I particularly don't want to use ls or find and I would prefer not to use setopt extendedglob. The following appears to work but I cannot see how to extend it with /.* to list hidden files. Is there a simple workaround?
g() { for k in "$1"/*; do # loop through directory
[[ -f "$k" ]] && { echo "$k"; continue; }; # echo file path
[[ -d "$k" ]] && { [[ -L "$k" ]] && { echo "$k"; continue; }; # echo symlinks but don't follow
g "$k"; }; # start over with new directory
done; }; g "/Users/neville/Desktop" # original directory
Added later: sorry - I should have said: 'bash-3.2 on OS X'
Change
for k in "$1"/*; do
to
for k in "$1"/* "$1"/.[^.]* "$1"/..?*; do
The second glob matches all files whose names start with a dot followed by anything other than a dot, while the third matches all files whose names start with two dots followed by something. Between the two of them, they will match all hidden files other than the entries . and ...
Unfortunately, unless the shell option nullglob is set, those (like the first glob) could remain as-is if there are no files whose names match (extremely likely in the case of the third one) so it is necessary to verify that the name is actually a file.
An alternative would be to use the much simpler glob "$1"/.*, which will always match the . and .. directory entries, and will consequently always be substituted. In that case, it's necessary to remove the two entries from the list:
for k in "$1"/* "$1"/.*; do
if ! [[ $k =~ /\.\.?$ ]]; then
# ...
fi
done
(It is still possible for "$1"/* to remain in the list, though. So that doesn't help as much as it might.)
Set the GLOBIGNORE file to exclude . and .., which implicitly turns on "shopt -u dotglob". Then your original code works with no other changes.
user#host [/home/user/dir]
$ touch file
user#host [/home/user/dir]
$ touch .dotfile
user#host [/home/user/dir]
$ echo *
file
user#host [/home/user/dir]
$ GLOBIGNORE=".:.."
user#host [/home/user/dir]
$ echo *
.dotfile file
Note that this is bash-specific. In particular, it does not work in ksh.
You can specify multiple arguments to for:
for k in "$1"/* "$1"/.*; do
But if you do search for .* in directories , you should be aware that it also gives you the . and .. files. You may also be given a nonexistent file if the "$1"/* glob matches, so I would check that too.
With that in mind, this is how I would correct the loop:
g() {
local k subdir
for k in "$1"/* "$1"/.*; do # loop through directory
[[ -e "$k" ]] || continue # Skip missing files (unmatched globs)
subdir=${k##*/}
[[ "$subdir" = . ]] || [[ "$subdir" = .. ]] && continue # Skip the pseudo-directories "." and ".."
if [[ -f "$k" ]] || [[ -L "$k" ]]; then
printf %s\\n "$k" # Echo the paths of files and symlinks
elif [[ -d "$k" ]]; then
g "$k" # start over with new directory
fi
done
}
g ~neville/Desktop
Here the funky-looking ${k##*/} is just a fast way to take the basename of the file, while local was put in so that the variables don't modify any existing variables in the shell.
One more thing I've changed is echo "$k" to printf %s\\n "$k", because echo is irredeemably flawed in its argument handling and should be avoided for the purpose of echoing an unknown variable. (See Rich's sh tricks for an explanation of how; it boils down to -n and -e throwing a spanner in the works.)
By the way, this will NOT print sockets or fifos - is that intentional?
For an assignment, I'm supposed to create a script called my_which.sh that will "do the same thing as the Unix command, but do it using a for loop over an if." I am also not allowed to call which in my script.
I'm brand new to this, and have been reading tutorials, but I'm pretty confused on how to start. Doesn't which just list the path name of a command?
If so, how would I go about displaying the correct path name without calling which, and while using a for loop and an if statement?
For example, if I run my script, it will echo % and wait for input. But then how do I translate that to finding the directory? So it would look like this?
#!/bin/bash
path=(`echo $PATH`)
echo -n "% "
read ans
for i in $path
do
if [ -d $i ]; then
echo $i
fi
done
I would appreciate any help, or even any starting tutorials that can help me get started on this. I'm honestly very confused on how I should implement this.
Split your PATH variable safely. This is a general method to split a string at delimiters, that is 100% safe regarding any possible characters (including newlines):
IFS=: read -r -d '' -a paths < <(printf '%s:\0' "$PATH")
We artificially added : because if PATH ends with a trailing :, then it is understood that current directory should be in PATH. While this is dangerous and not recommended, we must also take it into account if we want to mimic which. Without this trailing colon, a PATH like /bin:/usr/bin: would be split into
declare -a paths='( [0]="/bin" [1]="/usr/bin" )'
whereas with this trailing colon the resulting array is:
declare -a paths='( [0]="/bin" [1]="/usr/bin" [2]="" )'
This is one detail that other answers miss. Of course, we'll do this only if PATH is set and non-empty.
With this split PATH, we'll use a for-loop to check whether the argument can be found in the given directory. Note that this should be done only if argument doesn't contain a / character! this is also something other answers missed.
My version of which handles a unique option -a that print all matching pathnames of each argument. Otherwise, only the first match is printed. We'll have to take this into account too.
My version of which handles the following exit status:
0 if all specified commands are found and executable
1 if one or more specified commands is nonexistent or not executable
2 if an invalid option is specified
We'll handle that too.
I guess the following mimics rather faithfully the behavior of my which (and it's pure Bash):
#!/bin/bash
show_usage() {
printf 'Usage: %s [-a] args\n' "$0"
}
illegal_option() {
printf >&2 'Illegal option -%s\n' "$1"
show_usage
exit 2
}
check_arg() {
if [[ -f $1 && -x $1 ]]; then
printf '%s\n' "$1"
return 0
else
return 1
fi
}
# manage options
show_only_one=true
while (($#)); do
[[ $1 = -- ]] && { shift; break; }
[[ $1 = -?* ]] || break
opt=${1#-}
while [[ $opt ]]; do
case $opt in
(a*) show_only_one=false; opt=${opt#?} ;;
(*) illegal_option "${opt:0:1}" ;;
esac
done
shift
done
# If no arguments left or empty PATH, exit with return code 1
(($#)) || exit 1
[[ $PATH ]] || exit 1
# split path
IFS=: read -r -d '' -a paths < <(printf '%s:\0' "$PATH")
ret=0
# loop on arguments
for arg; do
# Check whether arg contains a slash
if [[ $arg = */* ]]; then
check_arg "$arg" || ret=1
else
this_ret=1
for p in "${paths[#]}"; do
if check_arg "${p:-.}/$arg"; then
this_ret=0
"$show_only_one" && break
fi
done
((this_ret==1)) && ret=1
fi
done
exit "$ret"
To test whether an argument is executable or not, I'm checking whether it's a regular file1 which is executable with:
[[ -f $arg && -x $arg ]]
I guess that's close to my which's behavior.
1 As #mklement0 points out (thanks!) the -f test, when applied against a symbolic link, tests the type of the symlink's target.
#!/bin/bash
#Get the user's first argument to this script
exe_name=$1
#Set the field separator to ":" (this is what the PATH variable
# uses as its delimiter), then read the contents of the PATH
# into the array variable "paths" -- at the same time splitting
# the PATH by ":"
IFS=':' read -a paths <<< $PATH
#Iterate over each of the paths in the "paths" array
for e in ${paths[*]}
do
#Check for the $exe_name in this path
find $e -name $exe_name -maxdepth 1
done
This is similar to the accepted answer with the difference that it does not set the IFS and checks if the execute bits are set.
#!/bin/bash
for i in $(echo "$PATH" | tr ":" "\n")
do
find "$i" -name "$1" -perm +111 -maxdepth 1
done
Save this as my_which.sh (or some other name) and run it as ./my_which java etc.
However if there is an "if" required:
#!/bin/bash
for i in $(echo "$PATH" | tr ":" "\n")
do
# this is a one liner that works. However the user requires an if statment
# find "$i" -name "$1" -perm +111 -maxdepth 1
cmd=$i/$1
if [[ ( -f "$cmd" || -L "$cmd" ) && -x "$cmd" ]]
then
echo "$cmd"
break
fi
done
You might want to take a look at this link to figure out the tests in the "if".
For a complete, rock-solid implementation, see gniourf_gniourf's answer.
Here's a more concise alternative that makes do with a single invocation of find [per name to investigate].
The OP later clarified that an if statement should be used in a loop, but the question is general enough to warrant considering other approaches.
A naïve implementation would even work as a one-liner, IF you're willing to make a few assumptions (the example uses 'ls' as the executable to locate):
find -L ${PATH//:/ } -maxdepth 1 -type f -perm -u=x -name 'ls' 2>/dev/null
The assumptions - which will hold in many, but not all situations - are:
$PATH must not contain entries that when used unquoted result in shell expansions (e.g., no embedded spaces that would result in word splitting, no characters such as * that would result in pathname expansion)
$PATH must not contain an empty entry (which must be interpreted as the current dir).
Explanation:
-L tells find to investigate the targets of symlinks rather than the symlinks themselves - this ensures that symlinks to executable files are also recognized by -type f
${PATH//:/ } replaces all : chars. in $PATH with a space each, causing the result - due to being unquoted - to be passed as individual arguments split by spaces.
-maxdepth 1 instructs find to only look directly in each specified directory, not also in subdirectories
-type f matches only files, not directories.
-perm -u=x matches only files and directories that the current user (u) can execute (x).
2>/dev/null suppresses error messages that may stem from non-existent directories in the $PATH or failed attempts to access files due to lack of permission.
Here's a more robust script version:
Note:
For brevity, only handles a single argument (and no options).
Does NOT handle the case where entries or result paths may contain embedded \n chars - however, this is extremely rare in practice and likely leads to bigger problems overall.
#!//bin/bash
# Assign argument to variable; error out, if none given.
name=${1:?Please specify an executable filename.}
# Robustly read individual $PATH entries into a bash array, splitting by ':'
# - The additional trailing ':' ensures that a trailing ':' in $PATH is
# properly recognized as an empty entry - see gniourf_gniourf's answer.
IFS=: read -r -a paths <<<"${PATH}:"
# Replace empty entries with '.' for use with `find`.
# (Empty entries imply '.' - this is legacy behavior mandated by POSIX).
for (( i = 0; i < "${#paths[#]}"; i++ )); do
[[ "${paths[i]}" == '' ]] && paths[i]='.'
done
# Invoke `find` with *all* directories and capture the 1st match, if any, in a variable.
# Simply remove `| head -n 1` to print *all* matches.
match=$(find -L "${paths[#]}" -maxdepth 1 -type f -perm -u=x -name "$name" 2>/dev/null |
head -n 1)
# Print result, if found, and exit with appropriate exit code.
if [[ -n $match ]]; then
printf '%s\n' "$match"
exit 0
else
exit 1
fi
Quite often i need to work on the newest file in a directory.
Normally i do:
ls -rt
and then open the last file in vim or less.
Now i wanted to produce an alias or function, like
lastline() {ls -rt | tail -n1}
# or
alias lastline=$(ls -rt | tail -n1)
Calling lastline outputs the newest file in the directory, which is nice.
But calling
less lastline
wants to open the file "lastline" which doesn't exist.
How do i make bash execute the function or alias, if possible without a lot of typing $() or ``?
Or is there any other way to achieve the same result?
Thanks for your help.
You're parsing ls, and this is very bad. Moreover, if the last modified “file” is a directory, you'll be lessing/viming a directory.
So you need a robust way to determine the last modified file in the current directory. You may use a helper function like the following (that you'll put in your .bashrc):
last_modified_regfile() {
# Finds the last modified regular file in current directory
# Found file is in variable last_modified_regfile_ret
# Returns a failure return code if no reg files are found
local file
last_modified_regfile_ret=
for file in *; do
[[ -f $file ]] || continue
if [[ -z $last_modified_regfile_ret ]] || [[ $file -nt $last_modified_regfile_ret ]]; then
last_modified_regfile_ret=$file
fi
done
[[ $last_modified_regfile_ret ]]
}
Then you may define another function that will vim the last found file:
vimlastline() {
last_modified_regfile && vim -- "$last_modified_regfile_ret"
}
You may even have last_modified_regfile take optional arguments: the directories where it will find the last modified regular file:
last_modified_regfile() {
# Finds the last modified regular file in current directory
# or in directories given as arguments
# Found file is in variable last_modified_regfile_ret
# Returns a failure return code if no reg files are found
local file dir
local save_shopt_nullglob=$(shopt -p nullglob)
shopt -s nullglob
(( $# )) || set .
last_modified_regfile_ret=
for dir; do
dir=${dir%/}
[[ -d $dir/ ]] || continue
for file in "$dir"/*; do
[[ -f $file ]] || continue
if [[ -z $last_modified_regfile_ret ]] || [[ $file -nt $last_modified_regfile_ret ]]; then
last_modified_regfile_ret=$file
fi
done
done
$save_shopt_nullglob
[[ $last_modified_regfile_ret ]]
}
Then you can even alter vimlastline accordingly:
vimlastline() {
last_modified_regfile "$#" && vim -- "$last_modified_regfile_ret"
}
Use command substitution like this:
lastline() { ls -rt | tail -n1; }
less "$(lastline)"
Or pipe it to xargs:
lastline | xargs -I {} less '{}'