Checkin if a Variable File is in another directory - bash

I'm looking to check if a variable file is in another directory, and if it is, stop the script from running any farther. So far I have this:
#! /bin/bash
for file in /directory/of/variable/file/*.cp;
do
test -f /directory/to/be/checked/$file;
echo $?
done
I ran an echo of $file and see that it includes the full path, which would explain why my test doesn't see the file, but I am at a loss for how to move forward so that I can check.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks

I think you want
#! /bin/bash
for file in /directory/of/variable/file/*.cp ; do
newFile="${file##*/}"
if test -f /directory/to/be/checked/"$newFile" ; then
echo "/directory/to/be/checked/$newFile already exists, updating ..."
else
echo "/directory/to/be/checked/$newFile not found, copying ..."
fi
cp -i "$file" /directory/to/be/checked/"$newFile"
done
Note that you can replace cp -i with mv -i and move the file, leaving no file left behind in /directory/of/variable/file/.
The -i option means interrogate (I think), meaning if the file is already there, it will ask you overwrite /directory/to/be/checked/"$newFile" (or similar) to which you must reply y. This will only happen if the file already exists in the new location.
IHTH

The command basename will give you just the file (or directory) without the rest of the path.
#! /bin/bash
for file in /directory/of/variable/file/*.cp;
do
test -f /directory/to/be/checked/$(basename $file);
echo $?
done

Related

How to check if a file exists or not and create/delete if does/does not exist in shell

In shell, I want to check if a file exists or not then create if it doesn't exist or delete if it exists. For this I need a one liner and am trying to do something like:
ls | awk '\filename\' <if exist delete else create>
I need the ls as my problem has some command that outputs a list of strings that need to be pipelined to awk then possibly touch/mkdir.
#!/bin/bash
if [ -z "$1" ] || [ ! -f "$1" ] # $1 is input filename and -f check if $1 is a regular file
then
rm "$1" #delete the file
else
touch "$1" #create the file
fi
save the file as filecreator.sh
change the permission to allow execution with sudo chmod a+rx
while running the script use ./filecreator.sh yourfile.extension
You can see the file in your directory.
Using oc projects and oc new-project instad of ls and touch as indicated in a comment.
oc projects |
while read -r proj; do
if [ -d "$proj" ]; then
rm -rf "$proj"
else
oc new-project "$proj"
fi
done
I don't think there is a useful way to write this as a one-liner. If you like, you can replace the newlines with semicolons, except after then and else.
You really should put your actual requirements in the question itself. ls is a superbly useless example because it cannot list a file which doesn't already exist, and you should not use ls in scripts at all.
rm yourfile 2>/dev/null || touch yourfile
If the file existed before, rm will succeed and erase the file, and the touch won't be executed. You end up with no file afterwards.
If the file did not exist before, rm will fail (but the error message is not visible, since it is directed to the bitbucket), and due to the non-zero exit code of rm, the touch will be executed. You end up with an empty file afterwards.
Caveat: If the file exists, but you don't have permissions to remove it, you won't notice this error, due to the redirection of stderr. Hence, for debugging and later diagnosis, it might be better to redirect stderr to some file instead.

Replace file only if not being accessed in bash

My requirement is to replace file only when it is not being accessed. I have following snippet:
if [ -f file ]
then
while true
do
if [ -n "$(fuser "file")" ]
then
echo "file is in use..."
else
echo "file is free..."
break
fi
done
fi
{
flock -x 3
mv newfile file
} 3>file
But I have a doubt that I am not handling concurrency properly. Please give some insights and possible way to achieve this.
Thanks.
My requirement is to replace file only when it is not being accessed.
Getting requirements right can be hard. In case your actual requirement is the following, you can boil down the whole script to just one command.
My guess on the actual requirement (not as strict as the original):
Replace file without disturbing any programs reading/writing file.
If this is the case, you can use a very neat behavior: In Unix-like systems file descriptors always point to the file (not path) for which they where opened. You can move or even delete the corresponding path. See also How do the UNIX commands mv and rm work with open files?.
Example:
Open a terminal and enter
i=1; while true; do echo $((i++)); sleep 1; done > file &
tail -f file
The first command writes output to file and runs in the background. The second command reads the file and continues to print its changing content.
Open another terminal and move or delete file, for instance with
mv file file2
echo overwritten > otherFile
mv otherFile file2
rm file2
echo overwritten > file
echo overwritten > file2
While executing these commands have a look at the output of tail -f in the first terminal – it won't be affected by any of these commands. You will never see overwritten.
Solution For New Requirement:
Because of this behavior you can replace the whole script with just one mv command:
mv newfile file
Consider lsof.
mvWhenClear() {
while [[ -f "$1" ]] && lsof "$1"
do sleep $delay
done
mv "$1" "$2" # still allows race condition
}

shell script to remove a file if it already exist

I am working on some stuff where I am storing data in a file.
But each time I run the script it gets appended to the previous file.
I want help on how I can remove the file if it already exists.
Don't bother checking if the file exists, just try to remove it.
rm -f /p/a/t/h
# or
rm /p/a/t/h 2> /dev/null
Note that the second command will fail (return a non-zero exit status) if the file did not exist, but the first will succeed owing to the -f (short for --force) option. Depending on the situation, this may be an important detail.
But more likely, if you are appending to the file it is because your script is using >> to redirect something into the file. Just replace >> with >. It's hard to say since you've provided no code.
Note that you can do something like test -f /p/a/t/h && rm /p/a/t/h, but doing so is completely pointless. It is quite possible that the test will return true but the /p/a/t/h will fail to exist before you try to remove it, or worse the test will fail and the /p/a/t/h will be created before you execute the next command which expects it to not exist. Attempting this is a classic race condition. Don't do it.
Another one line command I used is:
[ -e file ] && rm file
You can use this:
#!/bin/bash
file="file_you_want_to_delete"
if [ -f "$file" ] ; then
rm "$file"
fi
If you want to ignore the step to check if file exists or not, then you can use a fairly easy command, which will delete the file if exists and does not throw an error if it is non-existing.
rm -f xyz.csv
A one liner shell script to remove a file if it already exist (based on Jindra Helcl's answer):
[ -f file ] && rm file
or with a variable:
#!/bin/bash
file="/path/to/file.ext"
[ -f $file ] && rm $file
Something like this would work
#!/bin/sh
if [ -fe FILE ]
then
rm FILE
fi
-f checks if it's a regular file
-e checks if the file exist
Introduction to if for more information
EDIT : -e used with -f is redundant, fo using -f alone should work too
if [ $( ls <file> ) ]; then rm <file>; fi
Also, if you redirect your output with > instead of >> it will overwrite the previous file
So in my case I wanted to remove a FIFO file before I create it again, so this worked for me:
#!/bin/bash
file="/tmp/test"
rm -rf $file | true
mkfifo $file
| true will continue the script even if file is not found.

A simple mv command in a BASH script

The aim of my script:
look at all the files in a directory ($Home/Music/TEST) and its sub-directories (they are music files)
find out what music genre each file belongs to
if the genre is Heavy, then move the file to another directory ($Home/Music/Output)
This is what I have:
#!/bin/bash
cd Music/TEST
for files in *
do
if [ -f "$files" ];then
# use mminfo to get the track info
genre=`mminfo "$files"|grep genre|awk -F: '{print $2}'|sed 's/^ *//g'|sed 's/[^a-zA-Z0-9\ \-\_]//g'`
if [ $genre = Heavy ] ;then
mv "$files" "~/Music/Output/$files"
fi
fi
done
Please tell me how to write the mv command. Everything I have tried has failed. I get errors like this:
mv: cannot move ‘3rd Eye Landslide.mp3’ to ‘/Music/Output/3rd Eye Landslide.mp3’: No such file or directory
Please don't think I wrote that mminfo line - that's just copied from good old Google search. It's way beyond me.
Your second argument to mv appears to be "~/Music/Output/$files"
If the ~ is meant to signify your home directory, you should use $HOME instead, like:
mv "$files" "$HOME/Music/Output/$files"
~ does not expand to $HOME when quoted.
By the look of it the problem occurs when you move the file to its destination.Please check that /Music/Output/ exits from your current directory.Alternatively use the absolute path to make it safe. Also it's a good idea not use space in the file-name.Hope this will helps.:)
Put this command before mv command should fix your problem.
mkdir -p ~/Music/Output

Shell Script to copy all files in a directory to a specified folder

I'm new in shell script and I am trying to figure out a way to write a script that copies all the files in the current directory to a directory specified from a .txt file and if there are matching names, it adds the current date in the form of FileName_YYYYMMDDmmss to the name of the file being copied to prevent overwritting.
Can someone help me out?
I saw thinking something along the lines of
#!/bin/bash
source=$pwd #I dont know wheter this actually makes sense I just want to
#say that my source directory is the one that I am in right now
destination=$1 #As I said I want to read the destination off of the .txt file
for i in $source #I just pseudo coded this part because I didn't figure it out.
do
if(file name exists)
then
copy by changing name
else
copy
fi
done
the problem is I have no idea how to check whether the name exist and copy and rename at the same time.
Thanks
How about this? I am supposing that the target directory is in the
file new_dir.txt.
#!/bin/bash
new_dir=$(cat new_dir.txt)
now=$(date +"%Y%m%d%M%S")
if [ ! -d $new_dir ]; then
echo "$new_dir doesn't exist" >&2
exit 1
fi
ls | while read ls_entry
do
if [ ! -f $ls_entry ]; then
continue
fi
if [ -f $new_dir/$ls_entry ]; then
cp $ls_entry $new_dir/$ls_entry\_$now
else
cp $ls_entry $new_dir/$ls_entry
fi
done
I guess this what you are looking for :
#!/bin/bash
dir=$(cat a.txt)
for i in $(ls -l|grep -v "^[dt]"|awk '{print $9}')
do
cp $i $dir/$i"_"$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S)
done
I assumed that a.txt contains only the name of the destination directory. If there are other entries, you should add some filter to the first statement(using grep or awk).
NB: I used full time stamp(YYYYMMDDHHmmss) instead of your YYYYMMDDmmss as it doesn't seem logical.

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