Hello so today i was playing around with my shell script and figured to make it more user friendly i would make it so the file extension of file was automatically added.
for example say the user wants to search a file using grep but first they must type in thhe name of the file in this case lets say file.txt what i want to do is automatically add on the .txt so the user only needs to type in "file"
here is what i have so far but this does not work:
echo "Current .txt files "
ls -R |grep .txt
echo "--------------------------------------------------------------------------------"
echo -n "Please select a file to search in: "
read fileName
file=$fileName.txt
i thought in this case since i am appending an extension on to the end of the variable name but this has not worked.
Put quotes around it:
file="$filename.txt"
EDIT: As it happens, this answer is incorrect. See the comments below and the other answer.
Your code should work. See below-
Contents of test.sh:
#!/bin/bash
echo "Current .txt files "
ls -R |grep .txt
echo "--------------------------------------------------------------------------------"
echo -n "Please select a file to search in: "
read fileName
file=$fileName.txt
echo "You are searching for $file"
ls -l "$file"
Test run:
$ ./test.sh
Current .txt files
p1.txt
t1.txt
t2.txt
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please select a file to search in: t2
You are searching for t2.txt
-rw-r----- 1 d1rld1f1 d1rld1f1 4 Apr 20 12:41 t2.txt
$
BTW, it is generally advisable to enclose variable names in double quotes. This prevents reinterpretation of all special characters within the quoted string.
Related
Hello I am trying to get all files with Jane's name to a separate file called oldFiles.txt. In a directory called "data" I am reading from a list of file names from a file called list.txt, from which I put all the file names containing the name Jane into the files variable. Then I'm trying to test the files variable with the files in list.txt to ensure they are in the file system, then append the all the files containing jane to the oldFiles.txt file(which will be in the scripts directory), after it tests to make sure the item within the files variable passes.
#!/bin/bash
> oldFiles.txt
files= grep " jane " ../data/list.txt | cut -d' ' -f 3
if test -e ~data/$files; then
for file in $files; do
if test -e ~/scripts/$file; then
echo $file>> oldFiles.txt
else
echo "no files"
fi
done
fi
The above code gets the desired files and displays them correctly, as well as creates the oldFiles.txt file, but when I open the file after running the script I find that nothing was appended to the file. I tried changing the file assignment to a pointer instead files= grep " jane " ../data/list.txt | cut -d' ' -f 3 ---> files=$(grep " jane " ../data/list.txt) to see if that would help by just capturing raw data to write to file, but then the error comes up "too many arguments on line 5" which is the 1st if test statement. The only way I get the script to work semi-properly is when I do ./findJane.sh > oldFiles.txt on the shell command line, which is me essentially manually creating the file. How would I go about this so that I create oldFiles.txt and append to the oldFiles.txt all within the script?
The biggest problem you have is matching names like "jane" or "Jane's", etc. while not matching "Janes". grep provides the options -i (case insensitive match) and -w (whole-word match) which can tailor your search to what you appear to want without having to use the kludge (" jane ") of appending spaces before an after your search term. (to properly do that you would use [[:space:]]jane[[:space:]])
You also have the problem of what is your "script dir" if you call your script from a directory other than the one containing your script, such as calling your script from your $HOME directory with bash script/findJane.sh. In that case your script will attempt to append to $HOME/oldFiles.txt. The positional parameter $0 always contains the full pathname to the current script being run, so you can capture the script directory no matter where you call the script from with:
dirname "$0"
You are using bash, so store all the filenames resulting from your grep command in an array, not some general variable (especially since your use of " jane " suggests that your filenames contain whitespace)
You can make your script much more flexible if you take the information of your input file (e.g list.txt), the term to search for (e.g. "jane"), the location where to check for existence of the files (e.g. $HOME/data) and the output filename to append the names to (e.g. "oldFile.txt") as command line [positonal] parameters. You can give each default values so it behaves as you currently desire without providing any arguments.
Even with the additional scripting flexibility of taking the command line arguments, the script actually has fewer lines simply filling an array using mapfile (synonymous with readarray) and then looping over the contents of the array. You also avoid the additional subshell for dirname with a simple parameter expansion and test whether the path component is empty -- to replace with '.', up to you.
If I've understood your goal correctly, you can put all the pieces together with:
#!/bin/bash
# positional parameters
src="${1:-../data/list.txt}" # 1st param - input (default: ../data/list.txt)
term="${2:-jane}" # 2nd param - search term (default: jane)
data="${3:-$HOME/data}" # 3rd param - file location (defaut: ../data)
outfn="${4:-oldFiles.txt}" # 4th param - output (default: oldFiles.txt)
# save the path to the current script in script
script="$(dirname "$0")"
# if outfn not given, prepend path to script to outfn to output
# in script directory (if script called from elsewhere)
[ -z "$4" ] && outfn="$script/$outfn"
# split names w/term into array
# using the -iw option for case-insensitive whole-word match
mapfile -t files < <(grep -iw "$term" "$src" | cut -d' ' -f 3)
# loop over files array
for ((i=0; i<${#files[#]}; i++)); do
# test existence of file in data directory, redirect name to outfn
[ -e "$data/${files[i]}" ] && printf "%s\n" "${files[i]}" >> "$outfn"
done
(note: test expression and [ expression ] are synonymous, use what you like, though you may find [ expression ] a bit more readable)
(further note: "Janes" being plural is not considered the same as the singular -- adjust the grep expression as desired)
Example Use/Output
As was pointed out in the comment, without a sample of your input file, we cannot provide an exact test to confirm your desired behavior.
Let me know if you have questions.
As far as I can tell, this is what you're going for. This is totally a community effort based on the comments, catching your bugs. Obviously credit to Mark and Jetchisel for finding most of the issues. Notable changes:
Fixed $files to use command substitution
Fixed path to data/$file, assuming you have a directory at ~/data full of files
Fixed the test to not test for a string of files, but just the single file (also using -f to make sure it's a regular file)
Using double brackets — you could also use double quotes instead, but you explicitly have a Bash shebang so there's no harm in using Bash syntax
Adding a second message about not matching files, because there are two possible cases there; you may need to adapt depending on the output you're looking for
Removed the initial empty redirection — if you need to ensure that the file is clear before the rest of the script, then it should be added back, but if not, it's not doing any useful work
Changed the shebang to make sure you're using the user's preferred Bash, and added set -e because you should always add set -e
#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -e
files=$(grep " jane " ../data/list.txt | cut -d' ' -f 3)
for file in $files; do
if [[ -f $HOME/data/$file ]]; then
if [[ -f $HOME/scripts/$file ]]; then
echo "$file" >> oldFiles.txt
else
echo "no matching file"
fi
else
echo "no files"
fi
done
I am running a shell script on my mac, and i am getting a "No Such file or directory.
The input is: the replacement_name, and the working dir.
The output is: changing all files in the directory from $file to $newfilename
#!/bin/sh
echo "-------------------------------------------------"
echo "Arguments:"
echo "Old File String: $1"
echo "New File Name Head: $2"
echo "Directory to Change: $3"
echo "-------------------------------------------------"
oldname="$1"
newname="$2"
abspath="$3"
echo "Updating all files in '$abspath' to $newname.{extension}"
for file in $(ls $abspath);
do
echo $file
echo $file | sed -e "s/$oldname/$newname/g"
newfilename=$("echo $file| sed -e \"s/$oldname/$newname/g\"")
echo "NEW FILE: $newfilename"
mv $abspath/$file $abspath/$newfilename
done
It seems that it doesnt like assigning the result of my 1-liner to a variable.
old_filename_string_template.dart
test_template.dart
./bulk_rename.sh: line 16: echo old_filename_string.dart| sed -e "s/old_filename_string/test/g": No such file or directory
NEW FILE:
Test Information:
mkdir /_temp_folder
touch old_filename_string_template.a old_filename_string_template.b old_filename_string_template.c old_filename_string1_template.a old_filename_string1_template.b old_filename_string1_template.c old_filename_string3_template.a old_filename_string3_template.b old_filename_string3_template.c
./convert.sh old_filename_string helloworld /_temp_folder
The double quotes here make the shell look for a command whose name (filename, alias, or function name) is the entire string between the quotes. Obviously, no such command exists.
> newfilename=$("echo $file| sed -e \"s/old_filename_string/$1/g\"")
Removing the double quotes inside the parentheses and the backslashes before the remaining ones will fix this particular error.
The construct $(command sequence) is called a command substitution; the shell effectively replaces this string with the standard output obtained by evaluating command sequence in a subshell.
Most of the rest of your script has much too few quotes; so it's really unclear why you added them here in particular. http://shellcheck.net/ is a useful service which will point out a few dozen more trivial errors. Briefly, anything which contains a file name should be between double quotes.
Try to put double quotes outside backticks/subtitutions (not INSIDE backticks/substitutions like $("..."))
newfilename="$(....)"
By the way, please consider to use the package perl rename which already does this bulk file rename very well, with Perl regex style which is easier to use. This perl rename command maybe alreay available in your (Mac) distro. See intro pages.
I am trying to preserve special characters in my variables when setting them. I am trying to save file paths as variables. For example:
prompt
user input
click and drag your file here
/Users/leetbacon/Desktop/My\ Stuff/time\ to\ fly\ \&\ soar.png
You chose /Users/leetbacon/Desktop/My\ Stuff/time\ to\ fly\ \&\ soar.png
Instead, whenever I input the file it always outputs like this (which I DON'T want):
You chose /Users/leetbacon/Desktop/My Stuff/time to fly & soar.png
Any way to get it to store the variable how I would like it?
Here's the code I have right now:
echo 'click and drag your file here'
read -p " " FilepatH
echo 'You chose '"$FilepatH"
I would like for it to preserve ALL special characters. I'm just trying to write a script that can cover all possibilities of file names.
And I'm using OS X Yosemite
--Todd
I would like for it to preserve ALL special characters.
Done. In the script you posted, all characters are preserved.
You can verify that they are really preserved by running:
ls "$FilepatH"
This will work only because all special characters are preserved. If they were not preserved it wouldn't work, the file would not be found.
However, you might want to clarify the intent with the output:
echo "You chose '$FilepatH'"
This will print:
You chose '/Users/leetbacon/Desktop/My Stuff/time to fly & soar.png'
You can tell read to skip parsing (and removing) escapes and quotes by using its -r ("raw") option. But, as everyone has said, you do not want to do this. Having escapes and/or quotes embedded in the values assigned to shell variables doesn't do anything useful, because the shell does not parse them when it expands variables. See this question for an example of someone having trouble specifically because they had escapes embedded in the filenames they were trying to use.
Here's an example of doing this right:
$ cat t1.sh
#!/bin/bash
echo 'click and drag your file here'
read -p " " FilepatH
echo 'You chose '"$FilepatH"
echo
echo "Trying to use the variable with double-quotes:"
ls -l "$FilepatH"
$ ./t1.sh
click and drag your file here
/Users/gordon/weird\ chars\:\ \'\"\\\(\)\&\;.txt
You chose /Users/gordon/weird chars: '"\()&;.txt
Trying to use the variable with double-quotes:
-rw-r--r-- 1 gordon staff 0 Jul 19 22:56 /Users/gordon/weird chars: '"\()&;.txt
And here's doing it wrong (with read -r):
$ cat t2.sh
#!/bin/bash
echo 'click and drag your file here'
read -r -p " " FilepatH
echo 'You chose '"$FilepatH"
echo
echo "Trying to use the variable with double-quotes:"
ls -l "$FilepatH"
echo
echo "Trying to use the variable without double-quotes:"
ls -l $FilepatH
$ ./t2.sh
click and drag your file here
/Users/gordon/weird\ chars\:\ \'\"\\\(\)\&\;.txt
You chose /Users/gordon/weird\ chars\:\ \'\"\\\(\)\&\;.txt
Trying to use the variable with double-quotes:
ls: /Users/gordon/weird\ chars\:\ \'\"\\\(\)\&\;.txt: No such file or directory
Trying to use the variable without double-quotes:
ls: /Users/gordon/weird\: No such file or directory
ls: \'\"\\\(\)\&\;.txt: No such file or directory
ls: chars\:\: No such file or directory
Note that with the variable in double-quotes, it tried to treat the escapes as literal parts of the filename. Without them, it split the file path into separate items based on spaces, and then still treated the escapes as literal parts of the filenames.
I am writing a Shell script in Bash, Solaris.
I am trying to get the latest file that match a particular file pattern and SCP it over.
I have been reading, and most implementations are based on ls commands, which does not work well with funny characters. I'm looking for alternatives that can work with what I have wrote so far.
for i in {1..5}
do
for GMSFILE in $srcpath/KMS_MSEA_StatusAllocation_A*Y*.gms
do
if [ -e "$GMSFILE " ]
then
#GMS File Exist
TXTFILE=${GMSFILE %%.*}.txt
# Find same file name with txt extension now
if [ -f "$TXTFILE" ]
then
echo $TXTFILE
#scp -P 22 $GMSFILE $id#$ip:$destpath #>> $log 2>&1
break 2
fi
else
sleep 5
fi
done
done
you can use the date command with the -r option to display the last time a file was modified. once you have the list of files you can use date -r $TXTFILE +%s to get the Unix date stamp of the last time the file was modified. Once you know which value in the list is the most recent you can select to copy that item from the list.
I have a bash script that asks the user for them to type in a file name. I want the script to accept partial file name such as /b, and the script should output a list of files that includes every file that matches that partial name. For Example:
there are files named
animal
bat
boo
bury
in /
typing /b should then result in bat boo bury. If a user enters /animal/c the program should result in all files starting with a c in the animal folder.
Essentially I am trying to get the effect of [TAB] with a static input inside a script.
Thanks for the help!
Don't use tab completion. Use globs. /b* will match /bat, /boo and /bury if these files or directories exist.
#!/bin/bash
shopt -s nullglob
IFS= read -p "Enter a full or partial name: " -r filename
for f in "$filename"*
do
echo "Possible match: $f"
done